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PERSONAL 


HISTORY  OF  LORD  BACON. 


FROM  UNPUBLISHED  PAPERS. 


PERSONAL 


HISTORY  OF  LORD  BACON, 


FROM  UNPUBLISHED  PAPERS. 


BY   WILLIAM  HEPWOETH  DIXON 

OF   THE    INNER    TEMPLE. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR     AND     FIELDS 


M  UCCC  LXI. 


AUTHOR'S    EDITION. 


University  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


NOTE  FROM  THE  AUTHOR. 

I  FEEL!  happy  and  proud  that  an  arrangement  with 
Messrs.  Ticknor  and  Fields  to  reprint  The  Personal 
History  of  Lord  Bacon  gives  me  the  opportunity  of 
pleading  before  the  American  public  for  the  good  fame 
of  one  who,  dear  as  he  is  to  the  Old  World,  has  an 
especial  claim  on  the  sympathies  of  the  New.  J) 

W.   HEPWORTH  DIXON. 


20 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER     I. 
THE  BIOGRAPHERS. 

FACE 

1.  Art  and  Nature      .........  1 

2.  Pope's  Satire  on  Bacon        .......  2 

3.  Can  one  be  Good  and  Evil  ? 2 

4.  Traducers  of  Bacon     ........  3 

5.  Corruption  of  Pope's  Period    .......  3 

6.  Difference  between  contemporary  Libels  and  modern  Satires  4 

7.  Hume,  Hallam,  Lingard,  and  Macaulay          ....  5 

8.  Lord  Campbell's  Life  of  Bacon    ......  5 

9.  Importance  of  a  true  Estimate         ......  6 

10.  Bacon  among  his  Competitors 7 

11.  His  Rise  in  Life  slow  and  late          ......  8 

1 2.  Why  was  his  Rise  deferred  ? 8 

13.  Difficulties  of  the  Satirical  Theory 8 

14.  The  Questions  proposed  for  Illustration        ....  9 

15.  Careers  of  his  chief  Political  Contemporaries  .         .         .         .10 

16.  His  chief  Legal  Contemporaries  .         .         .         .         .         .  11 

17.  True  Critics  judge  by  the  Whole 11 

18.  Spedding's  Edition  of  Bacon's  Works 11 

CHAPTER    II. 

EARLY  YEARS. 

1.  Picture  of  Bacon  in  his  Youth 13 

2.  Moral  Beauty  of  his  Early  Life 14 

3.  -The  Bacon  Household.     Lady  Ann  and  her  two  Sons    .        .16 


viii  CONTENTS. 

4.  Bacon  at  Gray's  Inn.     In  the  House  of  Commons.     His  early   • 

Style 18 

Bacon  to  Wylie,  July  11,  1580 18 

Burghley's  Relation  to  him     .......     20 

5.  Bacon's  early  Parliament  Life     .         .         .         .         .         -         21 

6.  Character  of  the  Sessions  in  which  he  serves  .         .         .         .22 

7.  His  Rivals  in  the  House  of  Commons  .....         23 

8.  His  Personal  Appearance  at  Twenty-four        .         .         .         .25 

9.  Session  of  1586.     Bacon  represents  Taunton       ...         25 

10.  Excitement  in  the  Country 26 

11.  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  ........         27 

12.  Popular  Demand  for  her  Execution         .         .         .         .         .29 

13.  The  forged  Libels  against  Elizabeth 29 

14.  Bacon's  Fame  as  a  Member  of  Parliament       .         .         .         .30 

15.  Session  of  1589.     Bacon's  Speech  on  Subsidies    .         .         .31 

16.  Anthony  comes  Home.     The  Brothers  at  Gray's  Inn  Square. 

Sir  Nicholas  Bacon.     Dealings  with  the  Jews          .         .  32 

17.  A  Queen's  Ward 34 

Bacon  to  Lady  Ann,  Feb.  18,  1592 34 

Lady  Ann's  Care  of  her  Son.     Good  Advice  .         .         .        .35 

Lady  Ann  to  Anthony  Bacon,  May  24,  1592         ...  36 

The  Brothers  set  up  a  Coach.     Lady  Ann's  Objections  to  it  .  37 

18.  Session  of  1593.     Principal  Members  of  the  Commons.     War 

and  Plague.   -  State  of  London 38 

19.  Bacon  proposes  his  great  Law  Reform          .         .         .         .         39 

20.  Check  to  the  Government.     Lord  Campbell's  Mistake     .         .40 

21.  Burghley's  Proposal  for  Double  Subsidies    .         .         .         .         41 

22.  Bacon's  famous  Speech  and  Defeat  of  the  Crown    .         .         .42 

23.  Bacon  defends  his  Speech   .......         43 

24.  Raleigh  proposes  a  Compromise 44 

25.  Defeat  of  the  Government  ...  45 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  EAKL  OK  Fs«T-:x. 

1.  A  Candidate  for  Office.     Edward  Coke 47 

2.  Catherine  Carey.     Her  Grandson.     Robert  Devereux,  Earl 

of  Essex    .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  '48 

3.  Scandals  against  Queen  Elizabeth  !'• 


CONTENTS.  IX 

4.  Elizabeth's  Relation  to  Essex          .         .        .        .        .         .51 

5.  Essex  and  Francis  Bacon.     Bacon's  Poverty       .         .        .         52 
Bacon  to  Lady  Ann,  April  16,  1593 52 

6.  The  Brothers  in  Debt.     Designs  for  raising  Money.     Spencer 

the  Miser   ..........  54 

Bacon  to  Mr.  Spencer,  Sept.  19,  1593 54 

7.  Bacon  Sick 55 

Bacon  to  Lady  Paulett,  Sept.  23, 1593 56 

8.  Anthony  and  Francis  enter  the  Earl's  Service        .        .         .57 

9.  Duns  at  Gray's  Inn 58 

Bacon  to  Lady  Ann,  Oct.  3,  1593 58 

Ditto,                           Nov.  2,  1593 59 

10.  Bacon's  Prospects  dashed  by  Essex         .        .        .        .         .60 
Essex  to  Francis  Bacon,  March  24,  1594      .         .         .         .         61 

11.  Bacon's  Surprise  and  Resolution     .        .         .        .         .         .61 

Bacon  to  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  May  1,  1594        ....         62 

Cecil's  good  Wishes          ....  ...     62 

Cecil  to  Bacon,  May  1,  1594 63 

12.  Sickness  of  his  Mother    ........     63 

Bacon  to  Lady  Ann,  June  9,  1594 G4 

13.  Visit  to  Gorhambury.     Anthony's  easy  Nature        .         .         .65 
Lady  Ann  to  Francis  Bacon,  Aug.  20,  1594          ...         66 

Bad  News  at  Court 67 

Francis  to  Anthony  Bacon,  Aug.  26,  1594     .     •    .         .         .         67 
Lady  Ann  cautions  her  Son  against  the  Earl  .         .         .         .68 

14.  The  Roman  League    ........         68 

15.  Bacon  sick.     Lady  Ann's  Consolations   .         .         .        .         .     69 
Lady  Ann  to  Anthony  Bacon,  June  3,  1595  ....         70 
The  Queen's  Bounty  to  Bacon.     She  appoints  him  her  Learned 

Counsel,  and  gives  him  the  Pitts 71 

16.  Lady  Ann  to  Anthony  Bacon,  Aug.  7,  1595      .         .         .         .71 

17.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.     Bacon's  proposed  Compliment  to  the 

Guiana  Voyage  .........  72 

18.  Essex  jealous.     Burghley  and  Cecil  support  Raleigh's  Voyage  74 

19.  Iteming  made  Solicitor-General     ......  74 

20.  The  Error  about  Twickenham  Park    .         .         .         .         .  75 

21.  Essex's  Patch  of  Meadow        .......  76 

22.  Elizabeth's  Munificence  to  Bacon 77 

23.  She  grants  him  a  Reversion  of  Twickenham  Park  .        .         .78 

a* 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

TREASON  OF  SIR  JOHN  SMYTH. 

1.  Bacon's  Legal  Employments 80 

2.  Expedition  sails  for  Cadiz 80 

Francis  to  Anthony  Bacon,  May  15, 1596       .         .         .         .  81 

Ditto,  May  31,  1596  ....  82 

3.  Essex's  superfluous  Kindness 83 

Essex  to  Egerton,  May  27,  1596 83 

4.  Excitement  in  the  Country  .......  84 

5.  Sir  John  Smyth          ........  85 

6.  Attempt  to  excite  Mutiny 87 

7.  Bacon  one  of  the  Commissioners   to  take  his  Examination. 

Declares  the  Crime  High  Treason     .....       88 

8.  News  from  Cadiz 89 

9.  Discontent  of  Essex.     Cecil  Secretary  of  State.     Lady  Ann's 

Warnings  to  her  Sons  .......  90 

Lady  Ann  to  Anthony  Bacon,  July  10,  1596  ....  92 

Bacon's  Differences  with  Essex          .         .         .         .         .  93 

10.  They  cease  their  Intercourse.     Francis  in  Love.     Lady  Hat- 

ton  and  her  Suitors       .......  94 

1 1 .  Essex  deserts  his  Post.     Falls  under  the  Sway  of  Sir  Christo- 

pher Blount* .....  ...  95 

12.  Lady  Leicester  and  her  Children 96 

13.  Blount 97 

14.  Blotmt's  Influence.     Essex's  Choice  between  Bacon  and  Blount  99 

15.  Session  of  1597.     Bacon  Member  for  Ipswich    .         .         .         100 

16.  Great  Motion  on  the  State  of  the  Country    ....     101 

1 7.  Yeomen  and  the  Land.     Deer  and  Parks          .        .        .         103 

18.  Jesuits  on  the  Land  Question        ....  .104 

19.  Bacon's  Proposals 105 

20.  Conference  with  the  Lords    .         .         .         .         .         .         .105 

21.  Essex  opposes  Bacon's  Bills 106 

22.  Success  of  Bacon's  Measures 106 

23.  Grant  of  Cheltenham  and  Charlton  Kings         ...         107 


CONTENTS.  XI 

CHAPTER    V. 

THE  IRISH  PLOT. 

1.  Roman  Catholic  Conspiracy  at  Essex  House          .        .  .109 

2.  Plan  of  the  Plotters 110 

3.  Irish  Insurrection           .         .         .         .         .         .         .  .111 

4.  Movement  of  English  Troops     .         .         .         .                 .  112 

5.  Essex  gains  the  Command    .         .        .        .        .        .  .113 

6.  Coke  marries  Lady  Hatton        .        .                .        .        .  114 

7.  Essex  visits  Gray's  Inn.     Bacon's  Advice  rejected        .  .114 

8.  The  Jesuits  approve  the  Plot 116 

9.  Roman  Catholics  in  Command 117 

10.  Lord  Southampton    .        .         .        .        .         .        .        .  118 

11.  Essex  confers  with  O'Neile 119 

1 2.  Armaments  in  England.     Essex  returns    .         .        .        .  119 

13.  Shakespeare's  Richard  the  Second.     Essex  arrested     .         .121 

14.  Montjoy  goes  to  Dublin.     Wood's  Confession    .         .         .  121 

15.  Essex  deserted  by  all  save  Bacon 123 

16.  Bacon's  Generosity    .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  124 

1 7.  Bacon  ignorant  of  Essex's  real  Crimes 125 

18.  Intercedes  with  the  Queen        .         .        .         .        .        .  126 

19.  Hay  ward's  seditious  Tract    .         .        .        .    t    .        .        .127 

20.  Curious  Conversation  of  Bacon  and  Elizabeth  .         .         .  128 

21.  Bacon's  Note  to  Howard 12ff 

22.  Essex  liberated.     The  Queen's  Pledge      .        .        .         .  12S 

CHAPTER    VI. 

THE  STREET  FIGHT. 

1.  The  Plot  renewed 132 

2.  Catesby,  Wright,  and  Winter 133 

3.  Proposal  to  assassinate  the  Queen          .         .        .        .         .134 

4.  Valentine  Thomas's  Secret  Mission   .        .        .        .        .  134 

Points  of  Thomas's  Confession 135 

The  Secret  kept 136 

5.  Attempt  on  Raleigh 137 

6.  The  Conspirators  resolve  to  rise 137 


Xli  CONTENTS. 

7.  Send  for  Phillips  to  Essex  House.     Shakespeare's  Play  per- 

formed                      .  138 

8.  The  Street  Demonstration 138 

9.  Elizabeth  at  Whitehall 139 

10.  Fight  in  the  City.     The  Conspirators  in  Jail     .         .         .  139 

11.  Essex  put  on  Trial 141 

12.  Bacon's  Speech 142 

13.  Essex  confesses  against  his  Accomplices        ....  145 

14.  Elizabeth's  Gifts  to  Bacon 146 

Council  to  Coke,  Aug.  6,  1601 146 

15.  Mysterious  Escape  of  Monteagle  from  Justice  .        .        .  148 

16.  Lord  Campbell's  Judgment  of  Bacon's  Conduct    .        .         .148 

1 7.  Contemporary  Opinions.     Double  Elections  for  Ipswich  and 

St.  Albans  150 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE  NEW  REIGN. 

1.  Desire  of  James  for  Peace  with  Spain 152 

2.  Bacon  and  the  New  Court        .        .        .        .        .         .  ]  53 

3.  The  Session  of  1604.     Election  of  Speaker .        .         .         .  154 

4.  Grievances  of  the  Commons.     Union  with  Scotland  .         .  155 

5.  Bacon's  Position  in  the  House 157 

8.  Lord  Campbell's  Errors     .         .         .         .         .         .         .  158 

7.  Alice  Barnham     .........  159 

8.  Alice  Barnham's  Mother  and  Sisters          ....  160 

9.  Sir  John  Pakington 161 

10.  Westwood  Park 164 

11.  Bacon  in  Love 165 

12.  The  Powder  Plot 166 

Bacon  to  Cecil,  Nov.  8,  1605 167 

13.  Bacon's  Tolerance.     Case  of  Tobie  Mathews        .         .         .  168 

14.  Sir  John  and  the  Ladies  in  London  .....  169 

15.  Differences  between  Sir  John  and  Bacon.     Bacon's  Political 

Views      .        .        - 171 

16.  Cecil  consults  him  on  the  Money-Bills       .         .         .         .  174 
Bacon  to  Cecil,  Feb.  10,  1606 175 

17.  Warm  Debate  on  Subsidies       .        .        •'  .        .  175 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

18.  Bacon's  Fears  of  a  Division 178 

Bacon  to  Cecil,  March  22,  1606 177 

Rumor  that  the  King  is  slain 177 

19.  Bacon's  Speech 178 

20.  Proposes  to  Alice.     His  worldly  Position  and  Prospects        .  179 

21.  The  Wedding  Feast.     Alice's  Dowry        ....  181 

22.  A  new  Disappointment.     Egerton's  Suggestion     .         .        .182 

23.  The  Government  in  Difficulties.     Bacon  conciliated          .  183 

24.  Fuller's  Speech  against  the  Scots 185 

25.  Bacon's  Reply 186 

26.  Bacon  appointed  Solicitor-General 189 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

SOLICITOR-GENERAL. 

1.  Six  Years  of  Office 190 

2.  Cecil's  Riches  and  Prosperity 191 

3.  Bacon's  ceremonial  Politeness  with  his  Cousin        .        .         .192 

Bacon  to  Cecil,  Aug.  24,  1608 193 

Essay  on  Deformity       .         .        .        .        .        .        .        .193 

4.  The  Court  of  Wales 193 

5.  Sir  John  Pakington's  Quarrel  with  Lord  Eure      .         .         .195 

6.  Bacon  argues  against  Pakington        .        .         .        .        .         196 

7.  Bacon  one  of  the  Founders  of  America         .        .        .        .197 

8.  England  and  Spain  as  Colonists         .        .         .         .         .         197 

9.  Spanish  Designs  against  Virginia.     Fleet  under  Gates  and 

Summers       .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  198 

10.  The  City  of  Raleigh 200 

11.  The  Solicitor  in  Opposition 200 

12.  Crown  Privileges  for  Sale 201 

13.  Coke  against  Bacon 202 

14.  Bacon's  Speech  on  the  Feudal  Burdens        ....  208 

1 5.  Bargains  made  and  broken        ......  203 

16.  Death  of  Cecil.     Bacon's  Answer  to  James  ....  204 

1 7.  Bacon  proposed  for  Secretary  of  State      ....  205 

18.  Court  of  Wards 206 

Bacon  to  Lord  Rochester,  Nov.  14,  1612      ....  206 

Wards  and  Liveries 207 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

19.  Ireland     .  207 

20.  Sir  Arthur  Chichester's  Government    .  ...  208 

21.  Irish  Members  in  London.     Bacon's  Advice               .         .  210 
Bacon  to  King  James,  Aug.  13,  1613 210 

22.  Bacon  made  Attorney-General.     Coke  indignant      .        .  212 

23.  A  new  Session.     Bacon  returned  for  Cambridge,  Ipswich, 

and  St.  Albans.     Sits  for  Cambridge      ....  213 

24.  Curious  Debate  on  these  Elections.     Vast  Popularity  of  the 

Attorney-General 215 


CHAPTER    IX. 
ST.  JOHN  AND  PEACHAM. 

1.  Lord  Campbell's  Omissions  .        .        .        .        .         .         .218 

2.  Offence  of  Oliver  St.  John 218 

8.  St.  John  sent  to  the  Tower 220 

4.  His  amazing  Abjectness    .......  221 

St.  John  to  the  King 221 

5.  Lord  Campbell's  Mistakes 223 

6.  The  Case  of  Peacham 224 

7.  His  infamous  Character 225 

8.  Difficulty  suggested  by  Hallam.     Peacham  libels  his  Bishop  .  226 

9.  Condemned  by  Archbishop  Abbott   .....  227 

10.  Discovery  of  his  Political  Libels 228 

11.  Peacham's  Accusation  of  his  Patron,  John  Paulett     .        .  228 

12.  Commission  of  Examination          ......  229 

13.  Question  by  Torture 231 

14.  Character  of  the  Age 233 

15.  Bacon  opposed  to  Judicial  Torture 234 

16.  Peacham's  Condemnation 235 

17.  Confession 236 

1 8.  Macaulay's  Assertion  on  the  Practice  of  consulting  the  Judges  238 

19.  The  Precedent  of  Legate 239 

20.  Charge  against  Paulett  abandoned 240 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    X. 

EACE  WITH  COKE. 

1.  Bacon  and  Somerset 241 

2.  Character  and  Policy  of  Somerset    .        .        .        .        .  241 

3.  The  Romanist  Party  at  Court.     Lady  Somerset.     Murder  of 

Overbury 243 

4.  Publication  of  "The  Wife" 244 

5.  Inquiry  into  the  Crime.     Rise  of  Villiers      ....  244 

6.  Trial  of  the  Murderers     .......  246 

7.  The  Earl  and  Countess  arraigned 246 

8.  Bacon  pleads  for  Clemency       .         .         .         .         .         .  247 

9.  Bacon's  Domestic  Trials.     Sir  John  quarrels  with  Lady  Pa- 

kington.     Warrant  of  Search 248 

10.  Lady  Pakington  tries  to  rule  Bacon.     His  Defence  .         .  250 
Bacon  to  Lady  Pakington,  1616 251 

11.  Sir  William  and  Sir  Thomas  Monson         ....  252 

1 2.  Bacon's  Efforts  to  save  them.     Coke's  Animosity  .         .         .  253 
Bacon  to  Coke,  Apl.  16,  1616  (?) 254 

13.  Popular  Feeling  against  Sir  Thomas     .....  254 

14.  Fall  of  Coke 255 

1 5.  Case  of  Commendams  ........  256 

16.  James's  Message  to  Coke  through  Bacon  .         .        .        .  257 

1 7.  His  Message  direct        ........  258 

18.  The  Judges  on  their  Trial 259 

19.  Bacon  defends  himself  against  Coke     .....  260 

20.  Coke  condemned  by  Egerton    ......  260 

21.  Bacon  sworn  of  the  Council.     Procures  the  Restoration  of 

Dr.  Burgess 261 

22.  Coke  in  the  Star  Chamber 262 

23.  Lady  Hatton  deserts  him 263 

24.  Monson's  Case  referred  to  Bacon       .....  264 

Bacon  to  the  King,  Dec.  7,  1616     .         . . .         .         .  265 

Monson  Pardoned 266 

25.  Illness  of  Egerton.     Public  Business 266 

26.  Mysterious  Tale  of  Lady  Arabella  having  borne  a  Son.     Ba- 

con's Inquiry         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .  267 

27.  Bacon  receives  the  Seals      .......  270 


XVi  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER    XI. 

LORD  CHANCELLOR. 

1.  Rage  of  Coke 272 

2.  Story  of  Egerton's  later  Days 273 

3.  The  Gold  and  Silver  Thread  Business 274 

4.  Egerton  opposes  the  Patent  to  Mompesson        .         .         .  275 

5.  Buckingham  seeks  his  Ruin 276 

6.  Buckingham  loses  by  the  Transfer  of  the  Seals  to  Bacon  .  276 

7.  Coke's  Insinuations  against  Bacon         .         .         .         .         .277 

8.  Lady  Hatton 278 

9.  Frances  Coke  sold  to  Sir  John  Villiers.     Lady  Hatton's  op- 

position.    Escape  to  Oatlands  ......  279 

10.  Bacon  refuses  Lady  Buckingham's  Request  for  Warrants  of 

Arrest 281 

11.  Coke  breaks  into  Withipole's  House.     His  Wife  appeals  to 

the  Council      .        .        . 281 

1 2.  Coke,  threatened  with  Proceedings,  submits      .         .        .  282 

13.  Lord  Campbell's  Errors 284 

14.  Buckingham's  Interference        ......  285 

15.  Marriage  of  Sir  John  Villiers  and  Frances  Coke  .         .         .  285 

16.  Domestic  Broils  of  Sir  John  Pakington.     Bacon's  Delicacy 

and  Consideration     ........  286 

Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  July  5, 1617         ....  "287 

1 7.  Bacon's  Rise  and  Prosperity          ......  288 

18.  Suddenness  of  his  Fall 289 

CHAPTER    XII. 
FEES. 

1.  Universality  of  Fees     ....        i        ...  290 

2.  Fees  in  Government  Offices 290 

3.  Fees  on  the  Bench 291 

4.  Fees  at  the  Bar 292 

5.  Fees  not  an  old  Grievance 293 

6.  Bills  to  limit  Fees  rejected  by  the  Commons      .         .         .  294 
Sir  Francis  Bacon's  Speech  on  Fees  in  1606  ....  295 


CONTENTS.  XVii 

7.  Desire  to  change  the  System 299 

8.  Lady  Buckingham  hostile  to  Bacon.     Sir  Lionel  Cranfield. 

Sir  James  Ley      ........  300 

9.  Suffolk  prosecuted  and  ruined 302 

10.  Sir  Henry  Yelverton         .......  302 

11.  Prosecuted  in  Star  Chamber 304 

Bacon's  Notes  of  a  Speech,  Nov.  10,  1620  .        .        .        .  304 

Yelverton  Condemned          .......  305 

1 2.  Montagu  becomes  Treasurer     ......  306 

13.  Coventry  Attorney 306 

14.  Character  of  Cranfield 307 

15.  His  Ambition  and  Unscrupulousness      .....  308 

16.  Lady  Buckingham's  Lover,  John  Williams        .         .         .  309 

17.  The  Confederacy  against  Bacon 310 

18.  John  Churchill 7                 .  312 

19.  The  New  Session  313 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 

THE  ACCUSATION. 

1.  An  Empty  Treasury.     Bacon's  Jest      .        .        .         .         .314 

2.  Bacon  proposes  a  New  Parliament.     Foreign  Affairs         .  314 

3.  Agitation  in  England 316 

4.  Bacon  proposes  Reform .  317 

5.  Preliminaries  of  the  Session  .......  318 

Bacon  and  Others  to  Buckingham,  Nov.  29,  1620         .         .  318 

6.  Writs  go  out.     James  alarmed  by  the  Elections   .         .        .323 

7.  Stern  Character  of  the  new  Parliament.    Rage  against  Papists  323 

8.  Coke  heads  the  Fanatics 324 

9.  Bacon's  Tolerance  unpopular 325 

10.  Coke  takes  advantage  of  it  .         .        .         .        .        .         .326 

11.  Inquiry  into  Abuses  welcomed  by  Bacon  ....  326 

12.  Quarrel   of  Scrope   and  Berkshire.     Bacon   offends  Lady 

Buckingham     .........  327 

13.  Cranfield  attacks  the  Chancery         ......  328 

14.  Buckingham  urges  the  Commons  to  demand  Victims     .         .  328 

15.  Aubrey  and  Egerton's  Cases  brought  forward   .         .         .  330 

16.  Heneage  Finch  defends  Bacon 332 

b 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

17.  Churchill's  Evidence         .        .        .        .     '•    .        •         •  333 

18.  Bacon's  Confidence        .        .         .        .         •         •        •        .333 
19u  Bacon  sick.     His  Remarks  on  the  Accusation.  Declaration  of 

his  Innocence    .......••  334 

20.  The  Twenty-two  Charges 336 

21.  The  Case  sent  up  to  the  Lords 338 

22.  Ley  appointed  to  preside 339 

23.  Bacon's  Self-examination       .......  339 

24.  Preliminary  Vote  in  the  Peers 340 

25.  Bacon's  Confession         ........  342 

26.  Ley  delivers  Sentence 342 

CHAPTER    XIV. 

AFTER  SENTENCE. 

1.  Bacon's  Statement  of  the  Case 344 

2.  End  of  the  Movement  for  Reform      .....  344 

3.  Division  of  Spoil  among  the  Confederates.     Fall  of  Montagu  345 

4.  Bacon's  Fine  remitted 346 

5.  Busy  with  his  Books.     His  witty  Sayings.     Applies  for  the 

Provostship  of  Eton 347 

Bacon  to  Conway,  March  25,  1623 348 

6.  Con  way  supports  his  Suit  .         .         .         .         .         .         .  349 

Bacon  to  Conway,  March  29,  1623 350 

Dignity  of  Bacon's  Conduct 351 

7.  Bacon  to  King  James,  March  29,  1623   .         .         .                  .351 
Ditto        Conway,         April  23,  1623           .         .         .         .  352 

8.  Ditto,                             Sept.  2,  1623 353 

Buckingham  adverse.     Provostship  given  to  Sir  Henry  Wotton  353 

9.  Bacon's  Literary  Work 354 

10.  Fall  of  his  Enemies.     Coke.    Misery  of  Sir  John  Villiers  .  354 

11.  Fall  of  Churchill  and  Cranfield 356 

12.  Fall  of  Williams 356 

13.  Death  of  Bacon  357 


CONTENTS.  XIX 


APPENDICES. 

I.  LETTER  FROM  ANN  LADY  BACON  TO  LORD  BURGHLEY  361 

n.  LETTERS  FROM  LADY  BACON  TO  HER  SON  ANTHONY  364 

III.  LETTER  FROM  ANNE  BACON  TO  HER  BROTHERS  FRAN- 

CIS AND  ANTHONY 392 

IV.  LETTERS  FROM  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  VARIOUS  PERSONS  393 
V.  LETTER  FROM  ANTHONY  BACON  TO  FRANCIS  BACON  417 

VI.  LETTERS  BY  THE  EARL  OF  ESSEX       ....  418 

VIE.  EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  PRIVY  COUNCIL  REGISTERS  .  420 

VLLL  REPORT  BY  BACON  AND  OTHERS  TO  THE  PRIVY  COUNCIL  424 


FEANCIS    BACON. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE     BIOGRAPHERS. 

1.  A  FINE  wit  has  told  the  world  that  all  men  and  1. 1. 
women,  all  youths  and  girls,  are  true  poets,  save  only  — 
those  who  write  in  verse.  In  such  a  saying,  as  hi  all 
good  wit,  there  lies  a  core  of  truth.  Men  who  have  kept 
the  poetry  of  their  lives  unshaped  by  art  stand  face  to 
face  with  nature,  seeing  the  blue  sky,  the  bursting  leaf, 
the  hush  of  noon,  the  rising  and  setting  sun,  the  green 
glade,  the  flowing  sea,  as  these  things  are  ;  not  as  they 
appear  in  books,  cut  off  into  lengths  of  lines,  tricked  into 
antithetical  phrase,  rounded  and  closed  by  rhyme.  No 
false  rule  of  art  impels  a  man  who  sees  and  feels,  but  who 
does  not  mean  to  write  or  paint,  to  squint  at  a  group  of 
elms,  to  peer  through  his  hand  at  moonlight  shimmering 
on  a  lake,  or  at  sunset  on  the  tops  of  a  range  of  hills ; 
for  such  a  man  has  no  thought  of  how  tree,  lake,  and  alp 
may  be  described  in  verse  of  five  or  six  feet,  or  of  the 
lines  in  which  this  or  that  old  painter  would  have  framed 

1  A 


2  FRANCIS   BACON. 

T.  2.     them.     He  comes  fresh  to  nature,  and  has  an  intimate 
and  poetical  relation  to  her. 

'        f 

2.  As  with  nature,  so  with  man.     Thatffigure,  decked 

by  Pope,—  Vj 

The  wisest,  brightest,  meanest  of  mankind,  — 

over  which  fools  have  grinned  and  rogues  have  rubbed 
their  palms  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  has  never  yet 
been  recognized  by  honest  hearts.  Men  who  trust  the 
face  of  nature,  not  the  point  of  satire,  turn  from  this 
daub  as  from  a  false  note  in  song,  or  from  a  painted  liv- 
ing face.  The  young  and  pure  reject  satire,  and  they 
do  well  to  reject  it ;  for  satire  is  the  disease  of  art.  The 
young  and  pure  will  not  believe  a  thing  true  because  it  is 
made  to  look  false.  Taught  by  heaven,  and  not  by  rules, 
they  judge  of  character  in  the  mass.  Nature  abhors 
antitheses  ;  loving  the  soft  approach  of  dawn,  the  slow 
sprouting  of  the  seed,  and  moving  by  a  delicate  gradation 
through  her  round  of  calm  and  storm,  of  growth  and  life. 
Her  forks  never  flash  from  a  blue  vault,  nor  do  her  waves 
cease  to  crest  when  the  wind  which  whipped  them  lulls. 
Gradation  is  her  law.  If  she  may  make  a  god  or  devil, 
she  will  not  put  the  two  in  one.  That  is  the  task  of  art ; 
but  of  art  in  its  lowest  stage  of  depravity  and  decline. 


3.  Can  you  be  good  and  evil,  wise  and  mean  ?  Gazing 
on  the  girl-like  face  in  Hilyard's  miniature,  conning  the 
deep  lore  of  the  Essays,  toying  with  the  mirth  of  the 


THE   BIOGRAPHERS.  6 

Apothegms,  lingering  on  the  tale  of  a  gay  and  pure,  a    I-  3. 
busy  and  loving  life,  —  how  can  they  who  judge  by  wholes 
and  not  by  parts  admit  that  one  so  eminently  wise  and 
good  was  also  a  false  friend,  a  venal  judge,  a  dishonest 
man  ? 

4.  Yet  this  comedy  of  errors  has  run  its  course  from 
Alexander  Pope  to  John  Lord  Campbell.     Strange  to  say, 
the  grave  writers  have  gone  nearly  as  far  astray  from  fact 
as  those  bright  Parthians  who,  in  choosing  their  shafts, 
look  rather  to  the  feather  than  the  flight.     With  them 
Bacon  is,  in  turn,  abject,  venal,  proud,  profuse, — ungrate- 
ful for  the  gifts  of  Essex,  mercenary  in  his  love  for  Alice 
Barnham,  callous  to  the  groans  of  Peacham,  servile  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  corrupt  on  the  judicial  bench ! 

5.  (The  lie  against  nature  in  the  name  of  Francis  Ba- 
con broke  into  high  literary  force  with  Pope.     Before  his 
day  the  scandal  had  only  oozed  in  the  slime  of  Welden, 
Chamberlain,  and  D'Ewes.     Pope  picked  it,  as  he  might 
have  picked  a  rough  old  flint,  from  the  mud ;  fanged  it, 
poisoned  it,  set  it  on  'his  shaft :  — 

Meanest  of  mankind ! 

What  if  it  be  a  lie  ?     May  not  a  lie  kill  ? 

It  was  not  the  only  scum  which  in  Pope's  day  frothed 
to  the  head.  What  man  then  believed  in  nobleness,  even 
in  intellect,  unless  that  intellect  were  of  the  lowest  type, 
or  served  the  basest  cause  ?  The  sole  end  of  wit  was 


4  FRANCIS   BACON. 

i 

I.  5.  defamation,  the  sole  end  of  poetry  vice.  Of  pure  genius 
there  was  little,  of  high  virtue  less.  All  glorious  charac- 
ters, all  serious  things,  if  not  gone  wholly  from  the  minds 
of  men,  lingered  in  their  memories  only  to  be  reviled. 
When  Bacon  became  the  meanest  of  mankind,  Raleigh 
was  assailed,  and  Shakespeare  driven  from  the  stage. 
Rowe  was  tainting  our  national  drama,  St.  John  undoing 
our  political  philosophy,  Hume  training  his  mind  through 
doubts  of  God  for  the  task  of  painting  the  most  manly 
passage  of  arms  in  all  history  as  our  greatest  blunder  and 
our  darkest  shame.  How  should  Francis  Bacon  have 
escaped  his  share  in  this  moral  wreck  ?  j 

6.  No  man  of  rank  in  letters  had  yet  soiled  his  fame ; 
for  the  foes  who  had  lived  in  his  own  age,  who  had  danced 
with  hun  in  the  Gray's  Inn  masques,  or  had  bowed  to 
him  as  he  rode  down  to  the  House,  —  even  those  who, 
like  Sir  Robert  Cecil  and  Sir  Edward  Coke,  had  most  to 
fear  from  his  gladiatorial  strength,  and  in  the  madness 
of  that  fear  pursued  him  with  taunts  and  hate,  —  had 
never  dreamt  of  denying  that  his  virtues  and  his  courage 
stood  fairly  in  line  with  his  vast  abilities  of  tongue  and 
pen.  They  had  called  him  blind  when  they  could  not 
see,  as  he  could,  all  the  faces  of  an  object.  They  had 
denied  to  his  gratitude  the  strong  vitality  of  his  intellect- 
ual power.  They  had  spoken  of  his  vanity,  of  his  pre- 
sumption, of  his  dandyism,  of  his  unsound  learning  and 
unsafe  law;  but  the  malice  of  these  rivals  had  never 
strayed  so  far  as  to  accuse  him,  to  the  ears  of  men  who 


LORD   CAMPBELL.  5 

heard  him  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  met  him  at  I.  6. 
the  tavern  or  the  play,  of  a  radical  meanness  of  heart. 
Coke  had  called  him  a  fool.  Cecil  had  fancied  him  a 
dupe.  But  neither  his  rancorous  rival  at  the  bar,  nor  his 
sordid  cousin  at  Whitehall,  had  ever  thought  him  a  ras- 
cal. That  was  the  invention  of  a  later  time. 

The  age  that  took  Voltaire  to  be  its  guide,  found  out 
that  Bacon  had  been  a  rogue. 

7  \Since  then  he  has  been  the  prey  of  painters  and 
pasquins ;  his  offences  deepening,  darkening,  as  men  have 
moved  yet  farther  and  farther  from  the  springs  of  truth. 
Hume  is  comparatively  fair  to  him.  Hallam  is  less  fair  ; 
though  he  will  not,  even  for  the  sake  of  Pope,  call  Bacon 
the  meanest  of  mankind.  Lingard  paints  him  with  a 
more  unctuous  hate.  Macaulay,  hi  turn,  is  fierce  and 
gay :  his  sketch  of  Rembrandt  power :  his  lights  too  high, 
his  smears  too  black :  noon  on  the  brow,  dusk  at  the 
heart.  Nature  never  yet  made  such  a  man  as  Macau- 
lay  paints.  N 

8/But  of  all  the  sins  against  Francis  Bacon,  that  of 
Lord  Campbell  is  the  last  and  worst.  I  wish  to  speak 
with  respect  of  so  bold  and  great  a  man  as  our  present 
Lord  Chancellor.  He  is  one  who  has  swept  up  the  slope 
of  fame  by  native  power  of  heart  and  brain  ;  in  the 
proud  course  of  his  life,  from  the  Temple  to  the  Peer- 
age, from  the  Reporters'  Gallery  to  the  "Woolsack,  I  ad- 
mire the  track  of  a  man  of  genius,  —  brave,  circumspect, 


6  FRANCIS  BACON. 

I.  8.  tenacious,  strong  ;  one  not  to  be  put  down,  not  to  be  set 
aside ;  an  example  to  men  of  letters  and  men  of  law. 
But  the  more  highly  I  rank  Lord  Campbell's  genius,  the 
more  I  feel  drawn  to  regret  his  haste.  In  such  a  case  as 
the  trial  of  Bacon's  fame  he  was  bound  to  take  pains  ;  to 
sift  every  lie  to  its  root ;  to  stay  his  condemning  pen  till 
he  had  satisfied  his  mind  that  in  passing  sentence  of 
infamy  he  was  right,  beyond  risk  of  appeal.  A  states- 
man and  a  law-reformer  himself,  he  ought  to  have  felt 
more  sympathy  for  the  just  fame  of  a  statesman  and  law- 
reformer  than  he  has  shown.j  Not  that  Lord  Campbell 
finds  fault  with  Bacon  where  he  speaks  by  his  own  lights. 
Indeed,  there  he  is  just.  He  has  no  words  too  warm  for 
Bacon's  reforms  as  a  lawyer,  for  his  plans  as  a  minister, 
for  his  rules  as  a  chancellor.  When  Lord  Campbell 
knows  his  subject  at  first  hand,  his  praise  of  his  hero 
rings  out  clear  and  loud.  But  there  is  much  in  the  life 
of  Bacon  which  he  does  not  know.  He  has  not  given 
himself  time  to  sift  and  winnow.  Like  an  easy  magis- 
trate on  the  bench,  he  has  taken  the  pleas  for  facts. 
That  is  his  fault,  and  in  such  a  man  it  is  a  Very  s;rave 
fault. 

9. /What  Hallam  left  dark  and  Campbell  foul  should 
be  cleansed  as  soon  as  may  be  from  dust  and  stain.  It  is 
our  due.  One  man  only  set  aside,  our  interest  in  Ba- 
con's fame  is  greater  than  in  that  of  any  Englishman 
who  ever  lived.  We  cannot  hide  his  light,  we  cannot 
cast  him  out.  For  good,  if  it  be  good,  for  evil,  if  it 


BACON  AMONG   HIS   COMPETITORS.  7 

must  be  evil,  his  brain  has  passed  into  our  brain,  his  soul  I.  9. 
into  our  souls.  We  are  part  of  him ;  he  is  part  of  us ; 
inseparable  as  the  salt  and  sea.  The  life  he  lived  has 
become  our  law.  If  it  be  true  that  the  Father  of  Mod- 
ern Science  was  a  rogue  and  cheat,  it  is  also  most  true 
that  we  have  taken  a  rogue  and  cheat  to  be  our  god} 


10.  In  front  of  all  detail  of  fact,  a  general  question 
must  be  put. 

V^Bacon  seemed  born  to  power.  His  kinsmen  filled  the 
highest  posts.  The  sovereign  liked  him ;  for  he  had  the 
bloom  of  cheek,  the  flame  of  wit,  the  weight  of  sense, 
which  the  great  Queen  sought  in  men  who  stood  about 
her  throne.  His  powers  were  ever  ready,  ever  equal. 
Masters  of  eloquence  and  epigram  praised  him  as  one  of 
them,  or  one  above  them,  hi  their  peculiar  arts.  Jonson 
tells  us  he  commanded  when  he  spoke,  and  had  his 
judges  pleased  or  angry  at  his  will.  Raleigh  tells  us  he 
combined  the  most  rare  of  gifts ;  for  while  Cecil  could 
talk  and  not  write,  Howard  write  and  not  talk,  he  alone 
could  both  talk  and  write.  Nor  were  these  gifts  all  flash 
and  foam.  If  no  one  at  the  court  could  match  his  tongue 
of  fire,  so  no  one  in  the  House  of  Commons  could  breast 
him  in  the  race  of  work.  He  put  the  dunce  to  flight, 
the  drudge  to  shame.  If  he  soared  high  above  rivals  in 
his  more  passionate  play  of  speech,  he  never  met  a  rival 
in  the  dull,  dry  task  of  ordinary  toil.  Raleigh,  Hyde, 
and  Cecil  had  small  chance  against  him  in  debate  ;  in 
committee  Yelverton  and  Coke  had  none. 
Why  was  he  left  behind  ?  j 


8  FRANCIS  BACON. 

L  11.  11.  Other  men  got  on.  Coke  became  Attorney-General, 
Fleming  Solicitor-General.  Raleigh  received  his  knight- 
hood, Cecil  his  knighthood.  He  alone  won  no  spur,  no 
place.  Time  passed.  Devereux  became  a  Privy  Coun- 
cillor. Cobharn  got  the  Cinq  Ports,  Raleigh  the  patent 
of  Virginia.  Years  again  raced  on.  A  new  king  came 
in,  and  still  no  change.  Cecil  became  an  Earl,  Howard 
an  Earl.  What  kept  the  greatest  of  them  down  ?  It 
was  certainly  not  that  he  was  hard  like  Popham,  or  crazed 
like  Devereux,  or  gnarled  like  Coke.  A  soft  voice,  a 
laughing  lip,  a  melting  heart,  made  him  hosts  of  friends. 
No  child,  no  woman,  could  resist  the  spell  of  his  sweet 
speech,  of  his  tender  smile,  of  his  grace  without  study, 
his  frankness  without  guile.  Yet  where  he  failed,  men 
the  most  sullen  and  morose  got  on. 


12.¥W4iy  did  he  not  win  his  way  to  place  ?  He  sought 
it :  nevefr  man  with  more  passionate  haste  ;  for  his  big 
brain  beat  with  a  victorious  consciousness  of  parts  :  he 
hungered,  as  for  food,  to  rule  and  bless  mankind.  This 
question  must  be  met.  While  men  of  far  lower  birth 
and  claims  got  posts  and  honors,  solicitorships,  judge- 
ships,  embassies,  portfolios,  how  came  this  strong  man 
to  pass  the  age  of  forty-six  without  gaining  power  or 
place  ? 

Can  it  have  been  because  he  was  servile  and  cor- 
rupt ?- 


lORauk  and  pay,  the  grace  of  kings,  the  smiles  of 


HOW   TO   BE   JUDGED.  9 

ministers,  were  in  Bacon's  days,  as  in  other  days  before  I.  13. 
and  since,  the  wages  of  men  who  knew  how  to  sink  their 
views,  to  spend  their  years,  to  pledge  their  thought,  their 
love,  their  faith,  for  a  yard  of  ribbon  or  a  loaf  of  bread. 
If  Bacon  were  a  man  prostituting  glorious  gifts  and  strong 
convictions  for  a  beck  or  nod,  a  pension  or  a  place,  why 
did  he  not  rise  ?  why  not  grow  rich  ?  If  he  were  a  rogue, 
lie  must  have  sold  his  virtue  for  less  than  Popham,  his 
intelligence  for  less  than  Coke.  How,  then,  could  he  be 
wise  ? 

Wisest  and  meanest,  —  there  is  the  rub  !  But  turn  the 
case  round.  How  if  his  virtues,  not  his  vices,  kept  him 
down  so  long  ?  How  if  his  honesty,  tolerance,  magna- 
nimity, not  his  heartlessness,  his  servility,  and  his  cor- 
ruption, caused  his  fall  ? 

14.LLook  at  the  broad  facts  of  the  man's  life  first. 
Small  facts  may  be  true,  broad  facts  must  be  true.  One 
day  in  a  man's  course  is  hard  to  judge ;  a  year  less  hard ; 
a  whole  life  not  at  all  hard.  It  is  the  same  in  nature. 
Watch  for  one  night  the  track  of  a  planet.  Can  you  say 
if  it  move  to  the  right  or  left  ?  You  are  not  sure.  It 
seems  to  go  back.  It  seems  to  go  on.  Watch  it  for  a 
month,  and  you  find  that  its  path  is  forward.  Is  the  star 
in  fault  ?  Not  in  the  least.  It  is  your  own  base  that 
moves.  Look  at  any  chasm,  peak,  or  scar  on  the  earth's 
face  :  you  see  the  earth  jagged,  crude,  motionless.  Take 
in  the  whole  orb  at  once :  you  find  it  smooth,  round, 
beautiful,  and  swift.  In  Bacon's  own  words,  a  wise  man 
1* 


10  FRANCIS  BACON. 

I.  14.    "  will  not  judge  the  whole  play  by  one  act."     Still  less 
by  one  scene,  one  speech,  one  word,  will  he  judge. 

In  taking  Bacon's  course  as  a  whole  what  do  we  find  ? 
A  man  born  to  high  rank,  who  seeks  incessantly  for  place, 
who  is  above  all  men  and  by  universal  testimony  fit  for 
power ;  yet  one  who  passes  the  age  of  forty-six  before  he 
gets  a  start ;  one  who,  after  serving  the  Crown  for  more 
than  fourteen  years  in  the  highest  offices  of  the  most  lu- 
crative branch  of  the  public  administration,  dies  a  poorer 
man  than  he  was  born,  j 

15.  Bacon  was  fifty-two  when  he  became  Attorney- 
General  ;  fifty-seven  when  he  became  Lord  Chancellor. 
For  one  who  had  been  Elizabeth's  young  Lord  Keeper  at 
ten,  who  had  been  a  bencher  of  Gray's  Inn  at  twenty-six, 
Lent  Reader  at  twenty-eight,  this  rise  in  his  profession 
came  late  in  life ;  later  than  it  came  to  barristers  who 
could  boast  of  neither  his  personal  force  nor  his  father's 
official  rank. 

Coke  was  Attorney-General  at  forty-two.  Egerton  was 
Lord  Keeper  at  forty-six  ;  Bromley  Lord  Chancellor  at 
forty-seven  ;  Hatton  at  forty-eight. 

It  was  much  the  same  at  Court  as  at  the  Bar.  Youth 
was  at  the  prow  and  beauty  at  the  helm.  At  twenty- 
two  Sydney  went  ambassador  to  Vienna ;  at  thirty  he 
went  governor  to  Flushing.  At  twenty-six  Essex  was  a 
Privy-Councillor  ;  at  twenty-nine  Commander-in-chief. 
At  thirty-two  Raleigh  received  his  powers  to  plant  Vir- 
ginia. 


HIS  COMPARATIVE  POVERTY.  11 

16.  Again  :  if  Francis  Bacon  rose  later  in  life  than  I  16. 
Egerton  or  Coke,  even  after  he  had  risen  to  the  loftiest 
summit  of  the  Bar  he  won  for  himself  none  of  the  sweets 
of  office.  Alone  among  the  great  lawyers  of  his  time 
he  died  poor.  Hatton  left  a  prince's  wealth.  Egerton 
founded  the  noble  House  of  Ellesmere,  Montagu  that 
of  Manchester.  Coke  was  one  of  the  richest  men  in 
England.  Popham  bequeathed  to  his  children  Littlecote 
and  Wellington.  Bennet,  Hobart,  Fleming,  each  left  a 
great  estate.  How  explain  this  rule  and  this  exception  ? 

Surely  they  are  not  explained  by  the  theory  that 
Bacon's  servility  held  him  down,  while  Coke's  servility 
sent  him  up  ;  that  Bacon's  corruption  kept  him  poor, 
while  Popham's  corruption  made  him  rich  ! 

17 /To  judge  a  man's  life  in  mass  may  not  be  the  way 
to  please  a  Cecil  or  a  Coke  ;  the  libidinous  statesman 
who  made  love  to  Lady  Derby,  who  sold  his  country  for 
Spanish  gold,  who  gave  power  to  his  infamous  mistress 
Lady  Suffolk  to  vend  her  smiles ;  or  the  acrid  lawyer 
who  gibed  at  Raleigh,  who  married  a  jilt  for  her  money, 
who  gave  his  daughter  for  a  place.  Nor  is  it  the  way 
to  please  those  painters  and  lampooners  who  prefer  dash 
to  truth ;  for  a  man  so  judged  is  not  to  be  hit  on  paper 
in  a  mere  smudge  of  black  and  white,  by  dubbing  him 
wise  and  mean,  sage  and  cheat,  Solomon  and  Scapin, 
all  in  one  j 

18.  The  lie,  it  may  be  hoped,  is  about  to  pass  away. 


12  FRANCIS   BACON. 

I.  18.  An  editor  worthy  of  Bacon  has  risen  to  purge  his  fame. 
Such  labors  as  those  undertaken  by  Mr.  Spedding  de- 
mand a  life,  and  he  has  not  scrupled  to  devote  the  best 
years  of  an  active  and  learned  manhood  to  the  prelimi- 
nary toil.  Lord  Bacon's  Literary,  Legal,  and  Philosoph- 
ical Works  are  already  before  the  world  in  seven  of  Mr. 
Spedding's  princely  volumes,  printed  and  noted  with  the 
most  skilful  and  loving  care.  Three  or  four  volumes 
of  Occasional  and  Personal  Works  are  still  to  come,  for 
which  we  may  have  to  wait  as  many  years.  Meanwhile, 
the  appearance  of  this  new  edition  has  drawn  men's 
thoughts  to  the  character  of  Bacon  as  painted  by  his 
foes  ;  and  the  instinct,  strong  as  virtue,  to  reject  the 
spume  of  satire  and  falsehood,  has  sprung  at  the  voice 
of  Mr.  Spedding  into  lusty  life.  To  aid  in  some  small 
part  in  this  good  work  of  obtaining  from  men  of  letters 
and  science  a  reconsideration  of  the  evidence  on  which 
true  judgment  will  have  to  run,  the  new  facts,  the  new 
letters,  the  new  documentary  illustrations  comprised  in 
this  Review  of  the  Personal  History  of  Lord  Bacon  are 
given  to  the  world. 


EARLY   YEARS.  13 


CHAPTER    II. 

EARLY    YEARS. 

1.  SWEET  to  the  eye  and  to  the  heart  is  the  face  of     II.  1. 

Francis   Bacon   as   a  child.      Born   among   the   courtly 

1561 

glories  of  York  House,  nursed  on  the  green  slopes  and  Jan  w 
in  the  leafy  woods  of  Gorhambury  ;  now  playing  with 
the  daisies  and  forget-me-nots,  now  with  the  mace  and 
seals  ;  one  day  culling  posies  with  the  gardener  or 
coursing  after  the  pigeons  (which  he  liked,  particularly 
in  a  pie),  the  next  day  paying  his  pretty  wee  compli- 
ments to  the  Queen  ;  he  grows  up  into  his  teens  a  grave 
yet  sunny  boy  ;  on  this  side  of  his  mind  in  love  with 
nature,  on  that  side  in  love  with  art.  Every  tale  told 
of  this  plaything  of  the  court  wins  on  the  imagination  : 
whether  he  hunts  the  echo  in  St.  James's  Park,  or  eyes 
the  juggler  and  detects  his  trick,  or  lisps  wise  saws  to 
the  Queen  and  becomes  her  young  Lord  Keeper  of  ten. 
Frail  in  health,  as  the  sons  of  old  men  mostly  are,  his 
father's  gout  and  stone,  of  which  he  will  feel  the  twinge 
and  fire  to  his  dying  day,  only  chain  him  to  his  garden 

1.  Sir  Amias  Paulett's  Despatches  in  the  Cott.  MSS.,  Calig.  E.  vii.  3,  8, 16, 
81,  57;  Lady  Bacon  to  Anthony  Bacon,  Lambeth  MSS.  651,  fol.  54;  Bacon  to 
Lady  Paulett,  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  214. 


14  FRANCIS   BACON. 

n.  1.  or  his  desk.  When  thirteen  years  of  age  he  goes  to 
read  books  under  Whitgift  at  Cambridge  ;  when  sixteen 
to  read  men  under  Paulett  in  France.  If  he  is  young, 
he  is  still  more  sage.  A  native  grace  of  soul  keeps  off 
from  him  the  rust  of  the  cloister  no  less  than  the  stain 
of  the  world.  As  Cambridge  fails  to  dry  him  into 
Broughton,  Paris  and  Poictiers  fail  to  melt  him  into 
Montjoy.  The  perils  he  escapes  are  grave  ;  the  three 

1577.  years  spent  under  Whitgift's  hard,  cold  eye  being  no 
less  full  of  intellectual  snares  than  are  the  three  years 
spent  in  the  voluptuous  court  of  Henri  Trois,  among 
the  dames  and  courtiers  of  France,  of  moral  snares. 
In  the  train  of  Sir  Amias  Paulett,  he  rides  at  seven- 
teen with  that  throng  of  nobles  who  attend  the  King 
and  the  Queen-Mother  down  to  Blois,  to  Tours,  to 
Poictiers  ;  mixes  with  the  fair  women  on  whose  bright 
eyes  the  Queen  relies  for  her  success,  even  more  than  on 
her  regiments  and  fleets  ;  glides  in  and  through  the  hos- 
tile camps,  observes  the  Catholic  and  Huguenot  intrigues, 
and  sees  the  great  men  of  either  court  make  love  and 
war.  But  Lady  Paulett,  kind  to  him  as  a  mother,  watches 
over  his  steps  with  care  and  love, — .a  kindness  he  remem- 
bers and  repays  to  the  good  lady,  and  to  her  kin,  in  later 
years.  For  him  the  d'Agelles  sing  their  songs,  the  Tos- 
seuses  twine  their  curls  in  vain. 

2.  No  one  lapse  is  known  to  have  blurred  the  beauty 
of  his  youth.     No  rush  of  mad  young  blood  ever  drives 

2.  Sylva  Sylvarnm,  x.  946,  986. 


PURITY   OF   HIS  YOUTH.  15 

him  into  brawls.  To  men  of  less  temper  and  generosity  II.  2. 
than  his  own  —  to  Devereux  and  Montjoy,  to  Percy  and 
Vere,  to  Sackville  and  Bruce  —  he  leaves  the  glory  of 
Calais  sands  and  Marylebone  Park.  If  he  be  weak  on 
the  score  of  dress  and  pomp  ;  if  he  dote  like  a  young 
girl  on  flowers,  on  scents,  on  gay  colors,  on  the  trappings 
of  a  horse,  the  ins  and  outs  of  a  garden,  the  furniture  of 
a  room  ;  he  neither  drinks  nor  games,  nor  runs  wild  and 
loose  in  love.  Armed  with  the  most  winning  ways,  the 
most  glozing  lip  at  court,  he  hurts  no  husband's  peace, 
he  drags  no  woman's  name  into  the  mire.  He  se,eks  no 
victories  like  those  of  Essex  ;  he  burns  no  shame  like 
Raleigh  into  the  cheek  of  one  he  loves.  No  Lady  Rich, 
as  in  Sydney's  immortal  line,  has  cause 

To  blush  when  he  is  named. 

When  the  passions  fan  out  in  most  men,  poetry  flowers 
out  in  him.  Old  when  a  child,  he  seems  to  grow  younger 
as  he  grows  in  years.  Yet  with  all  his  wisdom  he  is  not 
too  wise  to  be  a  dreamer  of  dreams  ;  for  while  busy  with 
his  books  in  Paris  he  gives  ear  to  a  ghostly  intimation  of 
his  father's  death.  All  his  pores  lie  open  to  external  na- 
ture. Birds  and  flowers  delight  his  eye  ;  his  pulse  beats 
quick  at  the  sight  of  a  fine  horse,  a  ship  in  full  sail,  a  soft 
sweep  of  country ;  everything  holy,  innocent,  and  gay  acts 
on  his  spirits  like  wine  on  a  strong  man's  blood.  Joyous, 
helpful,  swift  to  do  good,  slow  to  think  evil,  he  leaves  on 
every  one  who  meets  him  a  sense  of  friendliness,  of  peace 
and  power.  The  serenity  of  his  spirit  keeps  his  intellect 


16  FRANCIS   BACON. 

II.  2.  bright,  his  affections  warm ;  and  just  as  he  had  left  the 
halls  of  Trinity  with  his  mind  unwarped,  so  he  now,  when 
duty  calls  him  from  France,  quits  the  galleries  of  the 
Louvre  and  St.  Cloud  with  his  morals  pure. 

1579.  3.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  fronts  the  world.  The 
staff  of  his  house  being  broken,  as  the  dream  had  told 
him,  he  hies  home  from  France  to  Lady  Bacon's  side. 
The  Lord  Keeper  had  not  been  rich,  and  his  lands  have 
passed  to  his  son  by  a  former  wife.  Ann  Lady  Bacon  is 
left  a  young  widow  with  two  sons,  Anthony  and  Francis, 
a  meek,  brave  heart,  and  a  slender  fortune  ;  a  little  family 
of  three  persons,  who  make  up  in  love  for  each  other  all 
that  they  lack  in  pelf.  Lady  Ann,  the  Olympia  Morata 
of  Elizabeth's  court,  is  one  of  five  sisters,  daughters  of  that 
fine  old  scholar  who  drugged  King  Edward  with  Latin 
verse,  Sir  Anthony  Cook  of  Giddy  Hall  in  Essex  ;  all  the 
five  pious  and  learned  as  so  many  Muses,  but  unlike  the 
Muses  all  made  happy  wives ;  Mildred  by  Lord  Burghley, 
Ann  by  the  late  Lord  Keeper,  Katharine  by  Sir  Henry 
Killigrew,  Elizabeth  first  by  Sir  Thomas  Hoby  and  next  by 
John  Lord  Russell,  Margaret,  the  youngest  sister  of  the 
five,  by  Sir  Ralph  Rowlet.  So  that  Francis  claims  through 
his  mother  close  cousinry  with  Sir  Robert  Cecil,  with  Eliz- 
abeth and  Anne  Russell,  with  the  witty  and  licentious  race 
of  Killigrews,  and  with  the  future  statesman  and  diploma- 

3.  Lord  Bacon  to  Burghley,  Lansdowne  MSS.,  xliii.  48;  Lady  Bacon  to  An- 
thony Bacon,  Lambeth  MSS.  648,  649,  650.  The  portrait  of  Lady  Bacon  by 
Nathaniel  is  at  Gorhambury. 


LADY  ANN  BACON.  17 

tist  Sir  Edward  Hoby.     Lady  Ann  is  deep  in  Greek  and    II.  3. 

in  divinity :   her  translation  of  Jewell's  "  Apology "  is 

1579 

praised  by  the  best  critics,  and  has  been  printed  for  pub- 
lic use  by  orders  from  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  ;  yet 
the  good  mother  is  not  more  at  home  with  Plato  and 
Gregory  than  among  her  herbs,  her  game,  her  stewpans, 
and  her  vats  of  ale.  Nathaniel  Bacon,  with  hearty  humor 
and  a  play  upon  her  name  and  habits,  has  made  a  portrait 
of  her  dressed  as  a  cook  and  standing  in  a  litter  of  dead 
game.  She  is  very  pious :  in  the  words  of  her  son  "  a 
Saint  of  God."  Not  quite  a  Puritan  herself,  she  feels  a 
soft  and  womanish  sympathy  for  men  who  live  the  gospel 
they  proclaim  ;  brings  up  her  sons  in  charity  with  all 
Protestant  creeds  ;  hears  the  preachers  with  profit ;  and, 
without  any  air  of  patronage  and  protection  towards 
them,  speaks  to  her  great  kinsman,  the  Lord  Treasurer, 
the  word  which  spoken  in  season  is  quick  to  save.  A 
bright,  keen,  motherly  lady  ;  apt,  as  good  women  are,  to 
give  advice.  To  her,  her  famous  children  are  always  two 
little  boys,  who  need  to  be  corrected,  physicked,  and  fed : 
when  they  are  forty  years  old,  and  filled  with  all  knowl- 
edge of  men  and  books,  she  not  only  sends  them  game 
from  her  own  larder  and  strong  beer  from  her  own  casks, 
having  no  great  faith  in  other  people's  work,  but  lectures 
them  on  what  they  shall  eat  and  drink,  when  they  shall 
purge  or  let  blood,  how  far  they  may  ride  or  walk  or  drive 
in  a  coach,  when  they  may  safely  eat  supper,  and  at  what 
hour  in  the  morning  they  shall  rise  from  bed. 

B 


18  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  4.  4.  Lady  Ann  lives  at  Gorhambury.  Anthony  is  abroad, 
now  in  France,  now  in  Italy,  now  in  Navarre,  conning 
the  languages  and  manners,  the  politics  and  events,  of 
these  famous  lands.  Francis  falls  to  his  terms  at  Gray's 
Inn,  seeks  the  help  of  his  great  kinsman  Burghley,  and 
finds  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  for  himself  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three. 

1580.  A  letter,  now  to  be  put  in  type,  will  show  that  he  has 
juiy  11.  fixe(j  his  tent  at  Gray's  Inn  as  early  as  the  summer  of 
1580,  a  few  months  after  his  nineteenth  year.  This  note 
is  curious  as  the  earliest  known  piece  of  writing  from  his 
hand,  and  as  a  sample  of  his  boyish  style.  Macaulay 
dwells  on  the  change  from  his  early  to  his  later  manner ; 
the  statuesque  severity  of  that  of  his  youth  compared 
against  the  glow,  the  imagery,  the  wit,  the  license,  and 
the  color  of  that  of  his  later  time.  At  twenty  Mino,  at 
forty  he  had  grown  into  Raffaelle.  How  grave,  how  cold 
this  message  to  Mr.  Wylie  ! 

BACON  TO  MB.  WYLIE. 

From  Gray's  Inn,  11  of  July,  15SO. 

MR.  WYLIE, — 

This  very  afternoon,  giving  date  to  these  letters  of 
mine,  I  received  yours  by  the  hands  of  Mr.  Wimbanke, 
and  to  the  which  I  thought  convenient  not  only  to  make 
answer,  but  also  therein  to  make  speed,  lest,  upon  supposi- 
tion that  the  two  letters  enclosed  were,  according  to  their 

4.  Gray's  Inn  Reg.,  cited  in  Craik's  Bacon,  i.  12;  Bacon  to  Wylie,  July  11, 
1580,  in  Lambeth  MSS.  647,  fol.  14. 


LETTEB  TO  MR.   WYLIE.  19 

directions,  delivered,  you  should  commit  any  error,  either  II.  4. 
in  withholding  your  letters  so  much  the  longer  when  per- 
adventure  they  mought  be  looked  for,  or  in  not  withhold- 
ing to  make  mention  of  these  former  letters  in  any  other 
of  a  latter  despatch.  The  considerations  that  moved  me 
to  stay  the  letters  from  receipt,  whether  they  be  in  respect 
that  I  take  this  course  to  be  needless  or  insufficient  or 
likely  to  lead  to  more  inconvenience  otherwise  than  to 
do  good,  as  it  is  meant  in  some  such,  they  are  that  they 
prevail  with  my  simple  discretion,  which  you  have  put  in 
trust  in  ordering  the  matter  to  persuade  me  to  do  as  I 
have  done. 

My  trust  and  desire  likewise  is  that  you  will  report  (?) 
and  satisfy  yourself  upon  that  which  seemeth  good  to  me 
herein,  being  most  privy  to  the  circumstances  of  the  mat- 
ter, and  tendering  my  brother's  orders  as  I  ought,  and 
not  being  misaffected  to  you  neither,  by  those  at  whom 
you  glance,  while  I  know  whom  you  mean.  I  know  like- 
wise that  you  mean  amiss  ;  for  I  am  able,  upon  knowl- 
edge, to  acquit  them  from  being  toward  [in  ?]  this  mat- 
ter. For  mine  own  part,  truly,  Mr.  Wylie,  I  never  took 
it  that  your  joining  in  company  and  travel  with  my 
brother  proceeded  not  only  of  good  will  in  you,  but  also 
of  his  motion,  and  that  your  mind  was  always  rather  by 
desert  than  pretence  of  friendship  to  earn  thanks  than 
to  win  them.  Neither  would  I  say  this  much  to  you, 
if  I  would  shrink  to  say  it  in  any  place  where  the  con- 
trary was  inferred  :  and  in  that  I  rectified  my  brother  of 
this  matter  being  delivered  unto  me  for  truth.  I  had 


20  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  4.  this  consideration  that  among  friends  more  advertise- 
ments are  profitable  than  true.  My  request  to  you  is, 

Jul  '  that  you  will  continue  and  proceed  in  your  good  mind 
towards  my  brother's  well-doing ;  and  although  he  him- 
self can  best  both  judge  and  consider  of  it,  yet  I  dare  say 
withall  that  his  friends  will  not  be  unthankful  to  miscon- 
strue it,  but  ready  to  acknowledge  it  upon  his  liking. 
And  as  for  this  matter,  as  you  take  no  knowledge  at  all 
of  it,  I  will  undertake  it  upon  my  knowledge  that  it 
shall  be  the  better  choice.  Thus  betake  I  you  to  the 
Lord. 

Your  very  friend, 

FB.  BACON. 

1585.  Though  he  enters  the  House  of  Commons,  he  finds  no 
NOT.  23.  pubiic  Work.  Not  that  Burghley  pets  and  lures  him  only 
to  chain  him  fast ;  the  great  Protestant  minister  is  a  man 
too  high  and  noble  for  such  a  part,  nor  can  Englishmen 
afford  to  soil  his  fame.  Bacon,  at  least,  never  dreams 
that  his  uncle  plays  him  false.  That  he  does  not  push 
him  with  all  his  might  is  true  :  but  this  may  be,  not  be- 
cause he  dreads  in  him  a  rival  to  his  son,  as  is  often  said, 
so  much  as  because,  being  old  and  timid,  fearful  of  ad- 
venture and  speculation,  of  risking  those  measures  of 
Religion  and  State  in  which  his  name  is  forever  bound 
up,  he  dreads  the  daring  and  original  genius  of  his  neph- 
ew, apt,  he  may  think,  in  his  flush  of  youth  and  intellect- 
ual strength  to  dash  at  success,  to  fly  at  the  nearest  road, 
to  bridle  and  ride  the  popular  storm. 


RETURNED   FOR   MIDDLESEX.  21 

5.  Rawley,  Mallet,  Montagu,  and  Lord  Campbell  have    H.  5. 

each  in  turn  slurred  the  ten  or  twelve  years  in  which 

1585. 
Bacon  grew  from  a  boy  of  nineteen  into  a  man  of  thirty     NoT ' 

or  thirty-one,  though  in  drama  and  instruction  these 
years  hold  rank  among  the  noblest  of  his  life.  The 
writers  set  him  high  on  the  stage  for  the  first  time  in 
1592,  when  he  is  thirty-one.  "  In  the  parliaments  which 
met  in  1586  and  1588,"  says  Lord  Campbell,  "  he  had 
been  returned  to  the  House  of  Commons ;  but  he  does 
not  seem  to  have  made  himself  prominent  by  taking  any 
decided  part  for  or  against  the  Crown." 

What  is  the  truth  ?  In  1592  he  is  returned  to  par- 
liament for  Middlesex,  the  most  wealthy,  liberal,  indepen- 
dent shire  in  England,  —  the  "West  Riding  of  the  time 
and  of  long  succeeding  times.  He  is  young,  poor,  out 
of  place.  He  is  even  out  of  favor,  since  his  uncle  has 
turned  from  the  young  reformer  his  powerful  face.  Hav- 
ing neither  rood  of  land  nor  hope  of  inheritance  within 
the  shire,  the  squires  and  freeholders  of  Middlesex  choose 
him.  Why,  and  how  ?  Did  penniless  genius  ever  start 
in  life  by  winning  the  first  constituency  in  the  realm  ? 
Burke  had  to  woo  the  electors  of  Wondover  before  he 
dreamt  of  Bristol.  Pitt  began  with  Appleby,  and  only 
at  his  height  of  power  won  the  University  of  Cambridge. 
Brougham  had  suffered  defeat  at  Liverpool,  and  had 
been  glad  to  sit  for  Knaresborough,  ere  he  tried  to  con- 
quer the  West  Riding.  So  with  Bacon.  Service  and 
success,  of  which  the  writers  have  never  heard,  lifted 

6.  Willis,  Notitia  Parliamentaria,  iii.  101, 113, 121;  D'Ewes,  337. 


22  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  5.    him  to  the  height  of  Middlesex.    When  he  rose  at  Brent- 
ford in  1592,  he  spoke  to  freeholders  who  knew  his  name 
1585 
Noy      and  voice,  not  only  as  one  of  the  most  youthful,  but  as 

one  of  the  most  daring  and  effective  members  of  a  for- 
mer House. 

Bacon  had,  indeed,  served  in  Parliament  prior  even 
to  the  sessions  of  1586  and  1588.  He  entered  the  House 
of  Commons  in  1585,  when  he  was  only  twenty-four. 
He  then  sat  for  Melcombe.  In  the  Parliament  of  1586 
he  sat  for  Taunton,  and  in  that  of  1588  for  Liverpool. 

6.  These  three  sessions  not  stirring!  The  author  of 
Tom  Jones  has  a  passage  on  the  advantage  of  a  writer 
knowing  his  subject;  the  great  humorist  should  have 
told  us  of  the  ease  and  comfort  which  a  writer  finds  in 
not  knowing  his  subject.  Will  not  his  soul  be  more  at 
peace  ?  No  truth  will  curb  the  freedom  of  his  judg- 
ment—  no  fact  interrupt  the  flow  of  his  style.  See  how 
Hallam  hesitates  and  halts  !  He  knows  too  much.  Only 
your  blind  horse  will  leap  into  the  chasm,  or  wait  his 
death-gore  from  a  horn  of  the  bull. 

A  month  at  b<joks  on  any  subject  will  not  weight  one 
much.  A  diplomatist  used  to  say  that  when  he  had  been 
four  weeks  in  London  he  felt  able  to  write  a  book  on 
English  life  ;  when  he  had  been  a  year,  he  had  doubts 
if  he  yet  understood  the  whole  of  his  theme  ;  when  he 
had  been  ten  years,  he  gave  up  the  book  in  despair. 

Not  stirring !     Why,  the  three  sessions  in  which  Bacon 

6.  D'Ewes,  332,  439;  Townshend,  i.  29. 


mS  EARLY  POPULARITY.  23 

served  his  parliamentary  apprenticeship,  though  slipped  II.  6. 
as  void  and  waste  by  his  biographers,  abound  in  scenes 
of  high  and  tragic  conflict, —  scenes  in  which  he  played 
an  active  and  conspicuous  part,  and  which  colored  and 
shaped  for  him  the  course  of  his  political  life.  These 
three  sessions  had  to  save  the  liberties  of  England,  the 
faith  of  nearly  half  of  Europe.  They  crushed  the  Jes- 
uits, they  founded  the  Defence  Association,  they  sent  out 
Raleigh  to  plant  new  States,  they  laid  Mary  on  the  bier 
at  Fotheringay,  they  broke  and  punished  the  Romanist 
conspiracies,  they  shattered  and  dispersed  the  Invincible 
Armada ! 

7.  Nor  were  these  early  Parliaments  less  bright  in 
composition  than  brave  in  deed.  On  swearing  the  oaths 
as  member  for  Melcombe,  Bacon  takes  his  seat  on  the 
same  benches  with  the  chief  lights  of  law  and  govern- 
ment,—  with  Hatton  and  Bromley,  Egerton  and  Wal- 
singham, — as  well  as  near  those  younger  glories  of  the 
Court,  the  poets  and  warriors  to  whom  secretaries  of 
state  are  but  as  clerks,  with  Sir  Philip  Sydney,  Sir  Wal- 
ter Raleigh,  Sir  Francis  Drake,  Sir  Charles  Blount,  and 
hosts  of  others  scarcely  less  renowned  than  these  in  love 
and  war. 

Yet  from  the  ranks  of  this  group  he  leaps  like  fire 
into  fame.  Burke's  spring  was  not  so  high,  Pitt's  pop- 
ularity was  not  so  wide.  At  twenty-five  he  has  won  the 
ear  of  that  fastidious  House.  Wit  so  radiant,  thought  so 

7.  Not.  Tarl.,  iii.  99,  107;  Bacon's  Essays,  No.  3. 


24  FRANCIS  BACON. 

I.  7.  fresh,  and  lore  so  prompt,  had  not  before,  and  have  never 
since,  been  heard  within  those  famous  walls.  Yet  his 

Nov  '  hold  on  the  men  of  his  generation  is  due  less  to  an  intel- 
lectual than  to  a  moral  cause.  They  trust  him,  for  he 
represents  what  is  best  in  each.  The  slave  of  Whitgift, 
the  dupe  of  Brown,  can  each  give  ear  to  a  churchman 
who  seeks  reform  of  the  church,  a  lawyer  eager  to  amend 
the  law,  a  friend  of  the  Crown  who  pleads  against  feudal 
privileges  and  unpopular  powers.  When  a  colleague  pro- 
poses some  change  in  the  church  which  would  destroy  it, 
he  replies  to  him :  "  Sir,  the  subject  we  talk  of  is  the 
eye  of  England ;  if  there  be  a  speck  or  two  in  the  eye, 
we  endeavor  to  take  them  off;  he  would  be  a  strange  ocu- 
list who  would  pull  out  the  eye."  Of  no  sect,  he  repre- 
sents in  Parliament  the  patriotic  spirit  of  all  the  sects. 
Not  himself  a  Puritan,  he  pleads  with  Hastings  for  re- 
form ;  not  a  Roman  Catholic,  he  lifts  his  voice  against 
persecution  for  concerns  of  faith ;  not  a  courtier,  he  votes 
with  Cecil  for  supplies.  In  one  word,  he  is  English.  To 
sustain  the  Queen  in  her  great  strife  with  Spain,  to 
guard  the  Church  from  abuse  and  from  destruction,  are 
as  much  his  objects  as  to  break  the  bonds  of  science  and 
lead  inquiry  back  from  clouds  to  earth.  When  he  strikes 
at  corruptions  in  the  State,  when  he  resists  the  usurpa- 
tions of  the  Peers,  when  he  saps  the  privileges  of  the 
Crown,  he  speaks  in  the  name  of  English  progress  and 
English  strength.  He  fights  for  reform  of  the  law,  for 
increase  of  tillage,  for  union  with  the  Scots,  for  planta- 
tions in  Ulster,  for  discovery  and  defence  in  Virginia, 


ASPECT   OF   THE   TIMES.  25 

for  free  Parliaments  and  for  ample  grants,  because   he    II.  7. 

sees  that  increase,  union,  freedom,  and  a  rich  execu- 

1585 
tive  are  each  and  all  essential  to  the  growth  and  grand-      ' 

eur  of  the  realm. 


8.  How  he   appears  in  outward    grace    and    aspect 
among  these   courtly   and  martial   contemporaries,  the 
miniature  by  Hilyard  helps  us  to  conceive.      Slight  in, 
build,  rosy  and  round  in  flesh,  dight  in  a  sumptuous  suit ; 
the  head  well-set,  erect,  and  framed  in  a  thick  starched 
fence  of  frill ;  a  bloom  of  study  and  of  travel  on  the  fat, 
girlish  face,  which  looks  far  younger  than  his  years  ;  the 
hat  and  feather  tossed  aside  from  the  broad,  white  brow, 
over  which  crisps  and  curls  a  mane  of  dark,  soft  hair  ;  an 
English  nose,  firm,  open,  straight ;  mouth  delicate  and 
small,  —  a  lady's  or  a  jester's  mouth,  —  a  thousand  pranks 
and  humors,  quibbles,  whims,  and  laughters  lurking  in 
its  twinkling,  tremulous  lines :  —  such  is  Francis  Bacon 
at  the  age  of  twenty-four. 

9.  No  session  ever  met  under  darker  skies  than  that    1586. 
of   1586.      Babington's   conspiracy  has  just  exploded;    Oct29- 
fleets  are  arming  in  Cadiz  bay ;    money  and  men  are 
ready  in  Rome,  in  Naples,  in  Leghorn,  for  a  crusade 
against  the  heretics  ;  Parsons  is  hounding  on  the  Pope, 
Sixtus  hounding  on  Philip  ;  in  the  Tagus,  at  the  Groyne, 

8.  Hilyard's  miniature  is  in  the  possession  of  Adair  Hawkins,  Esq.,  of  Great 
Marlborough  Street. 

9.  Dom.  Papers  of  Queen  Eliz.,  ccxxii.;  Andrese  Philopatri  ad  Elizabeth® 
Eeginse  Anglise  edictum  responsio;  Toulmin's  History  of  Taunton,  365. 

2 


26  FRANCIS   BACON. 

H.  9.  in  the  cities  of  Brabant  and  Flanders,  armaments  wait 
but  a  word  to  cross  over  into  Kent,  to  seat  Mary  Queen 

oct  29*  °f  Scots  on  the  throne,  to  reduce  England  to  a  fief  of  the 
Church.  England  flushes  with  heroic  pride.  London, 
Dover,  Portsmouth  swarm  with  soldiers  ;  drums  are  roll- 
ing in  every  hamlet,  yeomen  mustering  in  the  market- 

• 

places  of  every  shire.  But  no  part  of  England  burns 
with  more  fervent  heat  than  the  western  counties, 
nor  in  these  counties  than  the  town  of  Taunton. 
Taunton  is  the  seat  of  trade  and  manufacture, — a 
Manchester  of  a  milder  clime ;  next  to  Bristol  the  rich- 
est town  between  the  Severn  and  the  Scilly  Isles ;  next 
to  London  the  most  patriotic  town  between  the  Irish 
Sea  and  Dover  Straits.  In  the  day  when  everything  dear 
to  man  appears  to  be  at  stake,  this  populous  and  enter- 
prising town  sends  Bacon  to  Westminster  to  speak  in  its 
name  and  give  its  vote. 

10.  The  writs  having  gone  out  while  the  ruffians  who 
prated  of  friendship  and  sentiment  are  on  trial  for  their 
crimes,  the  passionate  patriotism  of  the  land  storms  up, 
too  strong  for  Burghley  to  breast,  too  strong  for  Elizabeth 
herself  to  ride.  When  the  Peers  and  Commoners  meet, 
a  cry  goes  up  to  the  throne  that  Mary  shall  be  brought 
to  trial,  and,  on  proof  of  her  guilt,  shall  be  put  to  death. 
In  this  stern  prayer  the  burgess  for  Taunton,  tolerant  as 
he  is  of  mere  opinion,  joins.  The  Crown  dares  not 
refuse.  Menaced  on  every  side,  England  can  give  no 

10.  State  Trials,  i.  1127-1162;  D'Ewes,  393. 


OUTCEY   AGAINST   MARY.  27 

answer  to  the  threats  of  invasion  save  an  open  trial  and  II.  10. 

solemn  execution  of  the  Queen  of  Scots. 

1586. 

Oct.  29. 

11.  What  to  do  with  Mary  had  been  a  dismal  question 
for  honest  men  since  the  day  when  she  had  first  sought 
refuge  in  Carlisle  from  her  licentious  barons  and  her  faith- 
less son.  In  her  room  at  Chartley,  guarded  by  the  old 
moat,  shut  in  with  her  women  and  her  priests,  she  had 
scared  the  Protestant  imagination  more  than  either  the 
Kaiser  in  Vienna  or  the  Pope  in  Rome.  Her  position 
was,  indeed,  most  strange :  to-day  a  prisoner,  to-morrow 
she  might  become  a  queen.  She  had  no  need  to  make  a 
party,  to  risk  her  head,  in  order  to  win  her  game.  She 
had  only  to  live :  certain,  as  fall  will  follow  spring,  of 
rising  one  day  from  her  bed  of  durance  to  find  the  necks 
of  her  enemies  beneath  her  feet.  An  accident,  a  crime, 
might  give  her,  any  hour,  the  crown.  A  stumbling  jen- 
net, an  unwholesome  meal,  a  prick  of  Babington's  knife, 
a  snap  of  Salisbury's  dagg,  might  take  away  the  life 
which  alone  stood  between  her  and  the  English  crown. 

Put  on  trial,  her  complicity  proved,  her  cousin  would 
still  have  spared  her  life.  But  the  Burghleys,  Davisons, 
and  Pauletts  were  in  no  position  to  treat  this  profligate 
woman  with  the  leonine  clemency  of  the  Queen.  To 
Elizabeth  she  was,  indeed,  a  danger  and  a  snare  ;  but  to 
the  Protestant  gentleman  who  loved  his  religion  and  his 


11.  Dom.  Papers  of  Eliz.,  cxciv. ;  D'Ewes,  393-410;  Davison  to  Walsing- 
ham,  Oct.  10, 1586,  in  the  State  Paper  Office;  Burghley  to  Davison,  Nov.  24, 
1586,  S.  P.  0. 


28  FRANCIS  BACON. 

H.  11.  country,  her  removal  or  succession  was  a  question  of  life 
or  death.  She  could  neither  break  Elizabeth  on  the 

oct  29*  wneel  nor  roast  ner  at  the  stake ;  for,  unless  a  Spanish 
force  should  succeed  in  seating  her  on  the  throne,  her 
day  of  evil  could  not  come  until  the  Queen  was  safe  from 
the  revenge  oMOng  and  Pope.  But  what  prelate  on  the 
bench,  what  councillor  at  the  board,  what  magistrate  in 
his  shire,  would  feel  his  head  safe  on  his  spine  should 
the  trumpets  bray  the  accession  of  Mary  to  the  English 
throne  ?  They  had  seen  another  Mary.  Old  men  recalled 
the  day  when  Latimer  perished.  Half  the  citizens  of 
London  could  tell  how  Rogers  had  gone  to  heaven  in 
the  Smithfield  fires.  All  England  shook  with  news  of 
the  more  recent  massacres  of  Paris,  —  massacres  solemnly 
approved  and  commemorated  in  Rome  as  services  to  God. 
Men  firm  in  their  own  faith,  loyal  to  their  own  Queen, 
pretended  no  pity  for  a  woman  who  to  Helen's  loveliness 
of  person,  added  more  than  Helen's  dissoluteness  of  mind. 
They  saw  in  Mary  a  wife  who  had  married  three  hus- 
bands and  was  eager  to  marry  more.  They  saw  in  her 
the  murderess  of  Darnley,  the  destroyer  of  the  Kirk. 
They  saw  in  her  a  pretender  to  the  English  crown,  in 
whose  name  Sixtus  had  resumed  the  kingdom,  and  Philip 
was  preparing  to  lay  it  waste.  Was  such  a  woman  to 
live  and  become  their  Queen  ? 

Had  Mary  refrained  from  plots,  content  to  bide  her 
time,  the  peril  of  such  a  future  would  have  been  hard 
to  meet ;  but  when  her  complicity  in  Babington's  treason 
was  proved  in  court,  then  Davison  urged,  and  the  House 


ELIZABETH   CALUMNIATED.  29 

of  Commons  demanded  by  petition,  that  for  the  security  H  11. 
of  life,  liberty,  and  true  religion  in  time  to  come,  the 

1  t>ftfi 

prisoner  of  Fotheringay  should  suffer  the  just  sentence 

^  Oct.  £y. 

of  the  law. 

12.  The  Queen  holds  out.     A    grand   committee,  of  NOT.  12. 
which  Bacon  is  a  member,  goes  into  the  presence,  and 

the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  the  knight  and  squire, 
the  lawyer  and  goldsmith,  kneeling  together  at  her  feet, 
demand  that  the  national  will  shall  be  done,  —  that  the 
Protestant  faith  shall  be  saved.     She  will  not  hear  them. 
When  the   deed  is   done   that  makes  England   free,  —    1537. 
done  by  Davison's  command  if  not  by  the  Queen's,  —    Feb-  a 
she  casts  the  courageous  minister  from  power  ;  nor  will 
she  to  her  dying  day  consent  to  see  his  face  or  hear  his 
name.     There  ought  to  be  no  doubt  of  the  sincerity  of 
her  grief. 

13.  The  letters  which  have  been  printed  in  more  re- 
cent times,  suggesting  that  Elizabeth,  while  affecting  to 
withhold  her  consent  to  Mary's  death,  instigated  Pau- 
lett  to  commit  a  private  murder,  are  odious  and  clumsy 
literary  forgeries.     These  letters  have  been  adopted  by 
Lingard,  and  have  half  imposed  on  the  cautious  Hal- 
lam.     Yet  the  originals  are  nowhere  to  be  found,  the 
name  of  the  pretended  discoverer  of  them  is  unknown, 


12.  Nicholas,  Life  of  Davison,  1823;  D'Ewes,  394-400;  Camden,  Ann.  1586. 

13.  Comp.  Hallam,  Hist,  of  Eng.,  i.  159  n.  ;  Lingard,  viii.  282;  with  a  Note  in 
Charles  Knight's  Hist,  of  Eng.,  iii.  205. 


30  FRANCIS   BACON. 

II.  13.  and  they  have  never  been  seen  by  and  competent  or 
reputable  man !  The  circumstances  of  their  publica- 

1587 

Feb  g  tion  suggest  forgery  for  a  political  end,  while  the  style 
and  statement  of  the  letters  prove  them  to  be  inven- 
tions of  a  later  time.  The  alleged  discovery  of  these 
papers,  so  damaging  to  the  English  Church  and  so  fatal 
to  the  Protestant  Queen,  was  made  by  partisans  of  the 
Papist  Pretender  in  the  hottest  days  of  the  Jacobite  feud. 
The  dates,  the  names,  the  facts  adduced,  establish  the 
comparatively  recent  fraud. 

The  Queen,  slow  to  shed  blood,  meant  to  save  Mary 
from  the  block  ;  but  her  people  and  her  parliament,  free 
from  her  woman's  weakness  and  her  ties  of  blood,  re- 
quired that  high  political  justice  should  be  done.  Mary 
was  the  first  and  worst  of  all  their  foes  ;  the  princes 
of  Spain  and  Italy  were  her  soldiers,  the  Babingtons 
and  Salisburys  of  London  her  assassins.  England  could 
only  meet  the  league  of  Kaiser,  Pope,  and  King  by 
snatching  away  their  flag.  Mary  gone,  the  invaders 
were  without  a  cause,  the  conspirators  without  a  cry. 
Who  shall  say  what  might  have  chanced  had  Mary  been 
alive,  when  the  Duke  of  Medina  Sidonia  rode  off  the 
Lizard,  to  excite  a  rising  in  the  western  shires,  or  even 
to  divide  the  loyalty  and  check  the  courage  of  the  Eng- 
lish fleet, 

14.  Bacon's  fame  as  a  patriot,  as  an  orator,  is  in  these 

14.  Phillippes  to  Davison,  Oct.  5, 1586,  S.  P.  0.    In  citing  those  State  Papers 
from  which  a  main  portion  of  the  following  narrative  will  be  derived,  I  must 


SITS   FOB  LIVERPOOL.  31 

transactions  formed  and  fixed.  To  know  him  is  to  be  II.  14. 
happy ;  to  have  been  at  school  with  him,  distinguished. 
William  Phillippes,  wanting  a  place  under  Davison  for 
his  son,  thinks  it  enough  to  remind  the  great  minister 
that  his  boy  had  been  trained  with  the  young  member 
for  Taunton. 

15.  Years  hurry  past.     The  Armada  comes  and  goes.    1589. 
While  the  watch-fires  are  yet  burning  on  the  cliffs,  the    Feb'4- 
wrecks  of  a  hundred  keels  yet  tossing  in  the  foam  from 
Devon  to  Caithness,  Parliament  meets.     Bacon  now  sits 
for  Liverpool.     Danger  is  past ;  the  Queen  has  been  to 
thank  God  at   St.  Paul's,   and  a  merry  Christmas  has 
been  kept  in  hall  and  cottage,  many  a  spar  washed  up 
from  the  wrecks  of  the  Spanish  fleet  crackling  in  the 
festive  fires. 

In  this  new  session  Bacon  serves  on  the  most  impor- 
tant committees,  speaks  on  the  most  important  bills : 
now  standing  for  the  privileges  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, now  assaulting  the  Royal  purveyors,  now  denounc- 
ing the  forestallers,  regrators,  and  engrossers.  The 
great  debates  of  this  year  occur  on  subsidies  and  grants. 

express  my  obligations  to  Sir  John  Romilly,  Master  of  the  Rolls,  for  the  facili- 
ties which,  during  many  years,  he  has  given  to  my  researches  among  the  public 
documents  of  which  he  has  the  legal  charge.  My  thanks  are  no  less  due  to 
Lord  Stanley  and  Sir  Edward  Bulwer  Lytton,  for  the  courtesy  with  which, 
when  Secretaries  of  State,  they  listened  to  my  proposals  for  certain  changes  in 
the  State  Paper  Office  favorable  to  historical  students,  and  for  the  promptitude 
with  which  they  consented  to  remove  restrictions  that  had  made  any  general 
and  critical  study  of  the  State  Papers  next  to  impossible. 

15.  Not  Parl.,  iii.  121;  D'Ewes,  430-439;  Statutes  of  the  Realm,  31  Eliz. 
c.  15. 


32  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  15.  Hatton  proposes  two  subsidies  and  four  fifteenths  and 
tenths;  to  which  Bacon,  whose  soul  is  in  the  patriotic 
tug,  agrees :  he  moves,  however,  to  insert  in  the  bill  a 

Feb.  4.  ° '       ° 

clause  explaining  that  these  grants  are  extraordinary  and 
exceptional,  meant  for  the  war,  and  only  for  the  war. 
To  this  the  Queen  objects,  as  fettering  her  future  acts : 
enough  for  the  squires  to  pronounce  their  Yea  or  Xay. 
The  squires  stand  firm.  Many  men  support  what  one 
man  dares.  After  much  debate,  the  Crown  proposes  to 
lay  the  bill,  with  Bacon's  amendments  to  it,  before  the 
Learned  Counsel ;  to  which  the  House  of  Commons, 
insisting  first  that  the  author  of  the  amendments  shall 
be  present  at  the  sittings  of  that  learned  board,  consents. 
Under  his  soft,  persuasive  tact,  the  interests  of  the  sov- 
ereign are  reconciled  with  the  interests  of  her  people, 
and  the  bill  is  passed  to  the  satisfaction  of  Queen  and 
Commons.  Power  and  fame  now  seem  to  be  in  his 
grasp.  Elizabeth  sends  for  him  to  the  palace  ;  the  elec- 
tors of  Middlesex  cast  their  eyes  upon  him ;  and,  when 
parliament  meets  again,  he  will  represent  the  wealth  and 
courage  of  that  great  constituency.  From  the  session 
of  1589  dates  his  firm  ascendency  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. 

16.  Lady  Bacon  and  her  sons  are  poor.     Anthony,  the 
loving  and  beloved,  with  whom  Francis  had  been  bred 

16.  Wottcn's  Baronetage,  edited  by  Johnson  and  Timber,  i.  8 ;  Patent  Rolls, 
16  Eliz.,  par.  6,  mem.  3;  Lady  Bacon  to  Anthony  Bacon,  Lamb.  MSS.  648,  106, 
650,  75,  651, 54 ;  Lady  Bacon  to  her  brothers  Francis  and  Anthony  Bacon,  Lamb. 
MSS.  648,  fol.  10. 


NICHOLAS   BACON.  33 

at    Cambridge   and   in   France,    has   now    come    home.    H.  16. 
His  health,  bad  at  the  best,  has  broken  in  the  south  ; 

1591 

so  he  lies  for  a  long  time  in  bed  or  on  a  couch  at  his 
brother's  rooms  in  Gray's  Inn  Square.  The  two  young 
fellows  have  little  money  and  expensive  ways.  Anthony, 
as  the  elder  brother,  owns  a  seat  at  Redburn,  in  Hert- 
fordshire, with  a  few  farms  lying  round  it.  Gorham- 
bury,  too,  will  be  his  when  Lady  Bacon  dies.  But  the 
rents  fall  far  below  his  needs,  not  to  speak  of  the  needs 
of  his  brother,  who  is  now  prominent  at  court,  a  leader 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  a  candidate  for  the 
glory  of  representing  in  parliament  the  metropolitan 
shire.  Their  half-brother  Sir  Nicholas,  who  inherits  Red- 
grave and  the  broad  Suffolk  acres  left  by  the  Lord 
Keeper,  a  man  with  penurious  habits  and  a  swarm  of 
children,  deems  his  own  nine  sons  and  three  daughters 
burden  enough,  without  having  to  pinch  for  the  off- 
spring of  Lady  Ann.  When  he  marries  a  daughter  they 
may  get  an  invitation  to  Redgrave  ;  but  his  brotherly 
hospitalities  end  with  the  feast.  Nathaniel  may  paint 
their  portraits  and  present  them  with  game  on  canvas, 
but  the  artist  can  do  nothing  to  fill  their  mouths. 
Edward  has  a  lease  from  the  Crown  of  Twickenham 
Park,  a  delightful  place  on  the  river,  of  which  Francis 
makes  a  home.  Lady  Ann  starves  herself  at  Gorham- 
bury  that  she  may  send  to  Gray's  Lin  ale  from  her 
cellar,  pigeons  from  her  dovecote,  fowls  from  her  farm- 
yard ;  gifts  which  she  seasons  with  a  good  deal  of 
motherly  love  and  not  a  little  of  her  best  motherly  ad- 


34  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  16.  vice.  The  young  men  take  the  love  and  leave  the  ad- 
vice, as  young  men  will.  Like  Buckhurst,  Herbert, 

im'  and  the  race  of  gay  cavaliers,  while  waiting  for  better 
days  and  brighter  fortunes,  they  relieve  their  wants  by 
help  of  the  Lombards  and  Jews. 

17.  Francis  looks  for  an  opening  to  mend  their  means. 
1592.    A  rich   alderman   dies,  leaving  his  son  a  ward.      The 
Feb' 18'    guardianship  of  a  Queen's  ward  is  often  a  profitable  toil, 
and  the  care  of  Hayward's   son  is  "in  Burghley's  gift. 
Francis  urges  Lady  Ann  to  apply  to  her  sister's  hus- 
band for  this  lucrative  trust. 


BACON  TO  LADY  BACON. 

From  my  Lodgings,  Feb.  18, 1591-2. 

MADAM, — 

Alderman  Hayward  is  deceased  this  night.  His  eld- 
est son  is  fallen  ward.  My  Lord  Treasurer  doth  not 
for  the  most  part  hastily  dispose  of  wards.  It  were 
worth  the  obtaining,  if  it  were  but  in  respect  of  the 
widow,  who  is  a  gentlewoman  much  recommended. 
Your  ladyship  hath  never  had  any  ward.  If,  my  Lady, 
it  were  too  early  for  my  brother  to  be  gone  with  a  suit 
to  my  Lord  before  he  had  seen  his  Lordship,  and,  for 
me,  if  I  at  this  time  procure  (?)  my  Lord  to  be  my 
friend  with  the  Queen,  it  may  please  your  ladyship  to 
move  my  Lord,  and  to  promise  to  be  thankful  to  any 

17.  Lambeth  MSS.  648,  fol.  5, 106,  110. 


LADY  BACON.  35 

other  my  Lord  oweth  pleasure  unto.     There  should  be    II.  17. 
no  time  lost  therein.     And  so  I  most  humbly  take  my 

1592. 
leaYe-  Feb.JS. 

Your  Ladyship's  most  obedient  son, 

FR.  BACON. 

My  Lord  (Lord  Burghley)  is  a  leal  friend  to  him 
with  the  Queen  ;  a  little  slow,  as  his  nature  is,  but 
honest,  sage,  and  sure.  While  waiting  for  a  post,  and 
only  that  of  Attorney-General  or  Solicitor-General  will 
serve  his  turn,  the  young  barrister  fags  at  his  books ; 
framing  in  his  mind  a  magnificent  scheme  for  reducing 
and  codifying  the  whole  body  of  English  law,  as  well 
as  shaping  his  more  colossal  plans  for  re-constituting 
the  whole  round  of  the  sciences.  Like  the  ways  of  all 
deep  dreamers,  his  habits  are  odd,  and  vex  Lady  Ann's 
affectionate  and  methodical  heart.  The  boy  sits  up 
late  of  nights,  drinks  his  ale-posset  to  make  him  sleep, 
starts  out  of  bed  ere  it  is  light,  or  may  be,  as  the 
whimsy  takes  him,  lolls  and  dreams  till  noon,  musing, 
says  the  good  lady,  with  loving  pity,  on  —  she  knows 
not  what!  Her  own  round  of  duty  lies  in  saying  her 
morning  and  evening  prayers,  in  hearing  nine  or  ten 
sermons  in  the  week,  in  caring  for  her  kitchen  and 
hen-roost,  in  physicking  herself,  her  maids,  and  her 
tenants,  in  making  the  rascals  who  would  cheat  her 
pay  their  rent,  and  hi  loving  and  counselling  her  two 
careless  boys.  Dear,  admirable  soul !  How  human  &nd 
how  humorous,  too,  the  picture  of  this  good  mother, 


36  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  17.    warm  in  her  affections,  scolding  for  us  our  broad-browed 
awful  Verulam ! 

1598. 
M»y24. 

LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

Gorhambury,  24th  May,  1592. 

Grace  and  health.  That  you  increase  in  amending  I 
'am  glad.  God  continue  it  every  way.  When  you  cease 
of  your  prescribed  diet,  you  had  need  I  think  to  be  very 
wary  both  of  your  sudden  change  of  quantity  and  of  sea- 
son of  your  feeding,  specially  suppers  late  or  full ;  procure 
rest  in  convenient  time,  it  helpeth  much  to  digestion.  I 
verily  think  your  brother's  weak  stomach  to  digest  hath 
been  much  caused  and  confirmed  by  untimely  going  to 
bed,  and  then  musing,  I  know  not  what,  when  he  should 
sleep,  and  then,  in  consequence,  by  late  rising  and  long 
lying  in  bed,  whereby  his  men  are  made  slothful  and  him- 
self continually  sickly.  But  my  sons  haste  not  to  hearken 
to  their  mother's  good  counsel  in  time  to  prevent.  The 
Lord  our  heavenly  Father  heal  and  bless  you  both,  as  His 
sons  in  Christ  Jesus  ! 

I  promise  you,  touching  your  coach,  if  it  be  so  to  your 
coDtentation,  it  was  not  wisdom  to  have  it  seen  and  known 
at  the  Court.  You  shall  be  so  much  pressed  to  lend,  and 
your  man  for  gain  so  ready  to  agree,  that  the  discom- 
modity thereof  will  be  as  much  as  the  commodity.  I 
would  your  health  had  been  such  as  you  needed  not  to 
have  provided  a  coach  but  for  a  wife  ;  but  the  will  of  God 
be  done.  You  were  best  to  excuse  you  by  me,  that  I 


LADY   BACON.  37 

have  desired  the  use  of  it,  because,  as  I  feel  it  too  true,  II.  17. 
my  going  is  almost  spent,  and  must  be  fain  to  be  bold 
with  you.  It  is  like  Robert  Bailey  and  his  sons  have  Ma  ^ 
been  to  seek  some  commodity  of  you  ;  the  father  hath 
been  but  an  ill  tenant  to  the  wood,  and  a  wayward  payer, 
and  hath  forfeited  his  bond,  which  I  intend  not  to  let  slip ; 
his  son  a  dissolute  young  man,  and  both  of  them  crafty. 
Likewise  young  Carpenter  may  sue  to  be  your  man.  Be 
not  hasty ;  you  shall  find  such  young  men  proud  and  bold, 
and  of  no  service,  but  charge  and  discredit.  Be  advised. 
Overshoot  not  yourself  undiscreetly.  I  tell  you,  plain  folk 
in  appearance  will  quickly  cumber  one  here,  and  they  will 
all  seek  to  abuse  your  want  of  experience  by  so  long  ab- 
sence. Be  not  hasty,  but  understand  well  first  your  own 
state.  There  was  never  less  kindness  in  tenants  com- 
monly than  now.  Farewell  in  Christ. 

Let  not  your  men  see  my  letters.  I  write  to  you,  and 
not  to  them. 

Your  mother, 

A.  BACON. 

This  coach  which  the  two  brothers,  both  of  them  sick, 
both  racked  with  gout  and  ague,  have  set  up,  weighs 
heavily  on  her  spirits.  Again  and  again  she  returns 
to  the  charge.  "  I  like  not  your  lending  it  to  any 
lord  or  lady.  It  was  not  well  it  was  so  soon  seen 
at  court.  Toll  your  brother,  I  counsel  you  to  send  it 
no  more.  What  had  my  Lady  Shrewsbury  to  borrow 
your  coach  ?  " 


38  FRANCIS   BACON. 

'IL  18.       18.  If  the  post  of  orator  of  the  House  of  Commons  is 

—     no  easy  one  to  win,  it  is  one  more  difficult  to  hold.     Wit, 

sense,  readiness,  repartee,  power,  patience,  mastery  of 

Ft!  D.  19. 

men  and  books,  are  parts  of  the  round  of  faculties  and 
acquirements  for  one  who  is  to  seize  the  direction  and 
sway  the  votes  of  an  English  House  of  Commons.  At 
thirty-two,  when  Bacon,  in  the  session  of  1593,  takes  his 
seat  for  Middlesex,  he  finds  on  the  benches  right  and 
left  of  him  men  the  most  renowned  in  English  story. 
Coke  is  Speaker ;  Cecil  leads  for  the  Crown  ;  Raleigh 
and  Vere  sit  nigh  him  ;  Fulk  Greville,  the  friend  of 
Sydney,  John  Fortescue,  Lawrence  Hyde,  Henry  Yelver- 
ton,  Edward  Dyer,  Henry  Montagu,  rival  speakers  and 
lawyers,  are  but  six  of  a  conspicuous  crowd.  The  war 
continues,  and  events  look  grave.  Battalions  crowd 
Dunkerque  and  Calais ;  the  flag  of  Leon  and  Castile 
flaps  within  sight  of  Dover-pier ;  London  stands  under 
arms ;  troops  hurry  for  Flanders,  Dublin,  and  Kinsale  ; 
the  Sussex  founderies  cast  guns ;  and  fort  on  fort  rises 
along  the  coast  from  Margate  to  Penzance.  Yet  the 
war  without  is  not  more  harassing  than  the  disease 
within.  London  gasps  with  plague.  No  lute  or  tabor 
sounds  from  the  tavern-porch  ;  no  play  draws  dames  and 
gallants  to  the  Globe  ;  no  pageant  crowds  the  Thames 
with  citizens  and  'prentice  boys.  An  order  from  the 
Lord  Mayor  puts  down  all  games,  —  the  bear-bait  at 

18.  Not.  Parl,  iii.  131;  Council  Reg.,  Jan.  28,  July  19,  1593;  Mem.  of  Men 
for  Ireland,  April  6,  1593,  S.  P.  0.;  Elizabeth  to  Godolphin,  May  9,  1593,  S.  P. 
0.;  Mem.  by  Bnrghley,  May  9,  22,  31, 1593,  S.  P.  0.;  List  of  Parishes  in  Lon- 
don infested  with  Plague,  Lamb.  MSS.  648,  fol.  152. 


OPPOSES   THE   GOVERNMENT.  39 

Paris  Garden,  the  sports  of  the  inn-yards,  the  song  and    II.  18. 
jollity  of  the  ale-clubs.     Yet,  in  the  midst  of  woe  and 
death,  the  recruiting-sergeant  beats  to  arms.     Henri  the      Feb 
Fourth,  who  has  mounted  the  throne  of  France,  pressed 
by  the  victorious  Spaniards,  calls  for  help,  and  levies  are 
being  raised  for  him  in  London  and  in'  places  usually 
exempt  from  such  a  tax. 

While  yielding  the  Queen's  government  support  on  her 
money-bills,  the  feeders  of  the  war,  Bacon  forces  on  the 
topic  of  reform,  and  defeats  an  extraordinary  attempt  at 
dictation  by  the  ministers  of  the  Crown. 

19.  The  House  has  not  sat  a  week  —  not  yet  proved  its  Feb.  26. 
returns  —  before  he  hints  at  his  scheme  for  amending  and 
condensing  the  whole  body  of  English  law.  The  House 
starts  up.  The  tide  might  have  come  in  from  the  Thames. 
Reform  the  code  !  Bacon .  tells  a  House  full  of  Queen's 
counsel,  Queen's  sergeants,  and  utter  barristers,  that  laws 
are  made  to  guard  the  rights  of  the  people,  not  to  feed 
the  lawyers.  The  laws  should  be  read  by  all,  known  to 
all.  Put  them  into  shape,  inform  them  with  philosophy, 
reduce  them  in  bulk,  give  them  into  every  man's  hand. 
So  runs  his  speech.  A  noble  thought,  —  a  need  of  every 
nation  under  the  sun,  —  a  task  to  be  wrought  at  by  him 
through  a  long  life,  —  to  be  then  left  to  successors,  who, 
after  revolutions  and  restorations,  commissions  and  re- 


19.  To-wnshend's  Historical  Collection,  60;  Bacon's  Works,  vii.  313;.  Les 
Aphorismes  du  Droit,  tradnits  du  Latin  de  Messire  Francois  Bacon,  Grand 
Chancelier  d'Angleterre,  par  J.  Baudoin,  1646. 


40  FRANCIS  BACON. 

11.19.  ports,  have  it  still  in  hand  —  undone !  The  plan,  of 
which  this  fragment  of  a  speech  is  the  root,  developed  in 
his  Maxims  of  the  Law,  and  proposed  as  part  of  his  great 
reform  in  the  De  Augmentis,  has  had  more  success  abroad 
than  it  has  found  at  home.  It  was  universally  read,  and 
most  of  all  in  France.  It  was  translated  by  Baudoin,  and 
inscribed  to  Segrier,  Chancellor  of  France.  In  that  coun- 
try it  has  blossomed  and  come  to  fruit.  But  a  French 
revolution  alone  had  power  to  achieve  this  vast  design 
against  established  things  ;  and  the  Code  Napoleon  is 
even  now,  in  1860,  the  sole  embodiment  of  Bacon's 
thought. 

March.  20.  Ten  days  later  he  gives  a  check  to  the  Govern- 
ment, which  brings  down  upon  his  head  those  censures 
of  Burghley  and  Puckering  which  are  said  to  have 
represented  in  fact,  if  not  in  word,  the  personal  anger 
of  the  Queen.  The  story  of  this  speech  has  been  so 
told  as  to  rob  Bacon  of  all  credit  for  his  daring,  the 
ministers  of  all  reason  for  their  wrath. 

Lord  Campbell  writes,  that  he  votes  for  the  grants 
proposed  by  the  Crown,  but  pleads  for  time  in  which 
the  ppople  shall  be  called  to  pay  them  ;  that  Burghley 
and  Puckering  bully  and  threaten  him ;  that  he  bows 
to  this  storm  of  indignation  a  penitential  face.  Lord 
Campbell  pictures  the  young  barrister  as  whining  under 
the  lash,  kissing  the  rod  that  smites  him,  pledging  the 
tears  in  his  eyes  that  he  will  never  in  that  way  offend 
her  Majesty  again! 

.20.  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,  art.  "  Bacon  "  iii.  15. 


OPPOSES   THE   GOVERNMENT.  41 

21.  The    offence    lies    deeper    than    Lord    Campbell    II.  21. 
dreams  :    an   offence  of  two  parts  ;  one  of  which  parts      — 
has  wholly  escaped  his  sight. 

March. 

The  Government  seeks  from  the  House  of  Commons 
a  very  .extraordinary  grant  of  money.  It  is  usual  to 
ask  for  half  a  subsidy  a  year.  Half  a  subsidy  is  ten 
per  cent,  —  two  shillings  in  the  pound  a  year.  Burgh- 
ley  proposes  to  demand  from  the  burgesses  a  double 
rate :  one  whole  subsidy  a  year ;  four  shillings  in  the 
pound.  So  high  a  tax  will  not,  he  knows,  be  voted  by 
the  House,  with  all  its  eagerness  for  war,  unless  the 
whole  authority  of  the  Crown  and  Government  can  be 
brought  to  bear.  He  forms  his  plans.  Drafting  such 
a  bill  as  he  hopes  may  pass,  he  sends  word  to  Mr. 
Speaker  Coke  that  he  must  beat  down,  in  the  Queen's 
name,  all  such  noisy  members  as  shall  presume  to  prate 
of  things  in  Church  and  State.  No  idle  threat,  as 
Bromley  and  Wentworth  find ;  ere  many  days  are  gone 
Wentworth  has  talked  himself  into  the  Tower,  Brom- 
ley into  the  Fleet. 

Burghley  now  asks  the  House  to  confer  with  the 
Peers  on  a  grant  for  the  Queen's  service ;  and  a  com- 
mittee goes  up  ;  among  them,  in  frill  and  feather,  gown 
or  sword,  Vere,  Raleigh,  Greville,  Hastings,  Cecil,  Bacon, 
and  Coke.  They  hear  the  Lord  Treasurer's  words  ;  and 
the  next  day  Cecil  reports,  in  their  name,  to  the  Com- 


21.  Inhibitions  delivered  to  Coke  from  the  Queen,  Feb.  28,  1593,  S.  P.  0.; 
Message  from  Coke  to  the  House  of  Commons,  Feb.  28,  1593,  S.  P.  0.;  Confes- 
sion of  Laton,  Feb.  1593,  S.  P.  0. 


42  FRANCIS  BACON. 

U.  21.  mons,  that  the  Peers  have  decided  for  them  what  they 
shall  give,  and  at  what  times:  three  subsidies  in  three 
years,  —  four  shillings  in  the  pound  each  year.  For 
them  to  hear  is  to  obey. 

Knight  and  squire  gaze  at  each  other.  Four  shil- 
lings in  the  pound  a  year !  And  the  Commons  robbed 
of  even  the  credit  of  their  own  gifts !  Such  a  speech 
is  resented  as  a  slur  on  their  patriotism,  a  curb  on  their 
debates. 

22.  Who  rises  to  warn  the  minister  ?  Is  it  the  fiery 
Raleigh,  the  martial  Vere  ?  Where  sits  the  noisy  Hast- 
ings, the  sagacious  Greville,  the  turbulent  Coke  ?  Not 
one  of  these  flames  up.  Soldiers  who  have  pushed 
through  Parma's  lines,  advocates  bronzed  in  cheek,  and 
Puritans  steeled  in  the  fire  of  controversy,  stare  and 
wait.  No  marvel  either.  Not  one  of  these  men,  in  a 
plain,  good  cause,  would  have  shrunk  from  a  threat  of 
Little  Ease,  or  Beauchamp  Tower.  The  difficulty  is, 
to  defend  their  right  of  making  grants  and  subsidies 
without  seeming  to  oppose  a  war  on  which  the  country 
has  set  its  soul,  and  without  showing  to  the  hosts  of 
home  and  foreign  enemies  a  broken  front.  To  the  bill 
itself  the  capital  objection  is  only  one  of  form.  Cecil 
counts  on  the  heat  for  battle;  and  to  fight  for  the 
power  of  free  taxation,  against  the  passionate  haste  of 
the  people  for  clash  of  pikes  and  roar  of  guns,  needs 
courage  of  a  lofty  and  peculiar  kind.  Coke  may  fear 

22.  D'Ewes,  468-83. 


RESENTS  INTERFERENCE  OF  THE  PEERS.        43 

to  offend  the  Queen,  Raleigh  to  embolden  the  King  of    n.  22, 
Spain,  Hastings  to  vex  the  musters  and  the  fleet.     Ba- 

1593. 
con  starts  up.  March 

A  few  clear  words  declare  that  he  does  not  mean  to 
touch  the  grant.  No  man  will  grudge  the  funds  to  fit 
out  ships  and  man  the  guns.  But  there  he  stops.  To 
give  is  the  prerogative  of  the  people,  —  to  dictate  what 
they  shall  give  is  not  the  duty  of  the  House  of  Peers. 
In  framing  this  bill  the  Government,  he  says,  has  gone 
beyond  its  powers  ;  and  he  counsels  the  Commons,  in  de- 
fence, to  decline  any  further  conferences  with  the  Lords 
on  a  money-bill.  From  his  vest  he  takes  an  Answer  to 
the  Lords,  which  he  proposes  shall  be  read,  and  if  ap- 
proved, sent  up.  This  Answer  is  referred  to  a  committee 
of  fifty-one.  The  committee  cannot  agree ;  and  return 
their  commission  to  the  House.  Hot  debates  ensue. 
Burghley  hides  himself  behind  the  Queen  ;  but  even  her 
august  and  sacred  name  appears  to  have  lost  its  force. 
Broad  lines  are  drawn,  and  the  members  fall  into  either 
camp.  The  courtiers  stand  with  Cecil  for  continuing  the 
conferences  on  the  money-bill ;  the  reformers  with  Bacon 
for  resisting  this  encroachment  on  the  constitutional  laws. 

Coke  puts  the  question  from  the  chair,  —  for  a  con- 
ference ;  yea,  or  nay  ?  A  hundred  and  twenty-eight  gen- 
tlemen cry  Yea.  Two  hundred  and  seventeen  gentlemen 
cry  Nay. 

23.   A  raid   of  Parma's   pikes   through  Kent  would 

23.  Bacon  to  Burghley  and  to  Puckering,  Montagu,  xii.  275,  Notes  E.  E. 


44  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  23.    have  startled  Burghley  less  than  such  a  vote.     It  is  the 

—     first  great  check  he  has  ever  known  ;  it  stops  the  whole 

machinery  of  legislation  ;  it  covers  himself,  his  measures, 

Mwcn. 

and  his  friends  with  public  shame.  He  scolds  his  nephew ; 
he  sets  the  Lord  Keeper  on  to  scold  him.  These  func- 
tionaries threaten  him  with  the  Queen's  ire  ;  but  Bacon 
defends  what  the  Knight  for  Middlesex  has  said  and 
done.  If  words  not  used  by  him  are  put  upon  him,  he 
will  deny  them  ;  if  his  words  are  misunderstood,  he  will 
explain  them ;  but  to  the  sense  of  his  speech  he  must 
hold  fast.  How  can  he  unsay  the  truth  ?  This  is  his 
apology  and  defence.  If  her  Highness,  as  they  urge,  is 
angry  with  him,  he  shall  grieve ;  if  she  commands  him 
into  silence,  he  must  obey ;  but  in  thwarting  this  inva- 
sion of  popular  rights  by  the  House  of  Peers,  he  has  done 
no  more  than  his  duty  to  his  Queen,  his  country,  and  his 
God. 

24.  Though  the  progress  of  the  bill  is  stopped,  all  sides 
agree  that  the  fleet  must  be  manned,  —  the  musters 
armed.  Raleigh  starts  a  compromise.  Flushed  with  his 
glorious  voyage,  red  with  spoil  from  the  Santa  Clara  and 
the  Madre  de  Dios,  the  adventurer  burns  to  be  again  at 
sea,  chasing  the  Spanish  ships,  or  forcing  the  rivers  of 
Guiana.  Every  day  given  to  debate  he  grudges  as  lost 
to  victory  and  revenge.  To  him,  delay  is  disaster  ;  talk 
is  treason.  Vote  the  supplies,  —  send  out  the  fleet,— 
dash  at  Cadiz  or  Malaga,  —  sweep  the  plantations,  —  snap 

24.  Townshend,  67 ;  D'Ewes,  488. 


RALEIGH'S   COMPROMISE.  45 

up  galleon  and  carrack,  —  death  to  the  yellow  flag !  cries    II.  24. 
that  impetuous  soul.     The  members  warm  to  his  voice. 
Resolve,  he  says  to  confer  with  the  Lords  on  the  perils  of    March 
the  realm.     Say  no  more  about  grants.     Listen  to  what 
the  Government  may  have  to  tell  about  the  Papal  bull 
and  the  Spanish  fleet.     When  you  have  saved  the  point 
of  form,  vote  the  money-bill  as  you  list.     Well  spoken, 
Raleigh  !     Not  a  tongue  cries  Nay. 

25.  Set  free  by  this  device  to  discuss  their  money-bill  APHI. 
the  Commons  fall  to  work.  Cecil  stands  to  the  old  plan 
of  three  subsidies,  to  be  paid  in  three  years.  Bacon, 
neither  cowed  nor  penitent,  rises  once  more  to  oppose 
the  court ;  not  on  the  amount,  which  he  approves,  but 
on  the  time,  which  is,  indeed,  the  essential  point.  He 
asks  for  six  years  in  place  of  three ;  in  other  words,  for 
two  shillings  in  the  pound  a  year,  in  place  of  four. 
Even  for  the  joy  of  smiting  Spain,  he  cannot  drain  the 
sources  of  industry,  seize  the  craftsman's  tools,  the  farm- 
er's cider-press  and  milk-pans.  Raleigh  storms  upon 
him.  Will  he  starve  the  war  ?  Cecil  smiles  and  cajoles. 
But  Bacon,  who  has  won  the  ear  even  of  this  warlike 
auditory,  insists  that  time  shall  be  given,  and  that  the 
grants  shall  be  described  as  exceptional  and  extraordi- 
nary. In  the  end,  against  the  warmth  of  Raleigh  and 
the  wiles  of  Cecil,  he  compels  the  Government  to  meet 
his  proposal  half-way,  to  extend  the  period  proposed 

25.  Lords'  Jour.,  ii.  184;  D'Ewes,  493;  Townshend,  72;  Statutes,  35  Eliz., 
o.  13. 


46  FRANCIS  BACON. 

II.  25.   for  the  raising  of  these  taxes  a  year  (in  other  words, 

to    take    three    shillings    in    the    pound    each    year    in 
1593 

April  place  of  four),  and  to  insert  a  clause  in  the  bill  de- 
claring that  the  money  is  given  solely  for  the  war 
against  Spain. 


CLAIMS   TO   BE   SOLICITOR-GENERAL. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE     EARL     OF     ESSEX. 

1.  Six  months  after  this  brush  with  the  Government    III.  1. 
Bacon  is  a  candidate  for  place.     The  Rolls  are  vacant, 

1593 
and  the  rise  of  Egerton  must  leave  the  post  of  Attorney  ' 

void.  Coke  claims  to  succeed.  Some  at  the  bar  and  on 
the  bench  would  prefer  Bacon's  rise  to  Coke's :  each  has 
his  troop  of  friends ;  and  thus,  at  an  early  stage,  begins 
that  rivalry  between  these  famous  men  which  is  to  run 
through  every  phase  of  their  careers,  and  only  end  with 
their  lives.  Coke  gains  his  move,  as  is  only  just.  Bacon's 
claim  to  the  place  left  void  by  Coke,  that  of  the  Solicitor- 
General,  is  much  more  strong.  Born  at  the  bar  and 
nursed  on  law,  he  has  served  to  his  profession  an  appren- 
ticeship of  fourteen  years.  If  Philosophy  has  been  his 
Rachel,  Law  has  been  his  Leah.  A  bencher  and  Reader 
of  his  Inn,  he  enjoys  a  good  reputation  in  chambers 
and  in  the  courts.  The  best  judges  at  the  bar  approve 
his  rise.  Burghley  and  Cecil  cautiously  promote  his  suit, 
and  Egerton  presses  it  with  a  noble  friendship  on  all  who 
have  power  to  help  or  harm.  Yet  in  the  end  Thomas 
Fleming  gets  the  post,  a  man  only  known  to  the  world  for 

1.  Chron.  Jurid.,  177;  Lane's  Reports,  22. 


48  FRANCIS   BACON. 

III.  1.    having  stood  in  Bacon's  way,  and  to  the  profession  for  his 
singular  and  disastrous  ruling  in  the  case  of  Bates. 
Bacon  owes  this  loss  of  place  to  Robert  Devereux,  Earl 

Sept* 

of  Essex :  out  of  which  cruel  disappointment  to  him 
springs  the  charge  of  ingratitude  to  a  patron, — treason 
to  a  friend. 

A  plain  history  of  events  will  show  that  the  connection 
of  Bacon  with  Essex  was  one  of  politics  and  business ; 
that  it  brought  no  advantages  to  Bacon,  and  imposed  on 
him  no  obligations  ;  that  it  ceased  by  the  Earl's  own  acts  ; 
that  personally  and  politically  Essex  separated  himself 
from  Bacon,  not  Bacon  from  Essex ;  that  Bacon,  in  his 
efforts  to  save  Essex  while  he  believed  him  a  true  man, 
went  the  extremest  lengths  of  chivalry ;  and  that,  in  act- 
ing against  him  when  he  proved  himself  a  rebel  and  a 
traitor,  he  did  no  more  than  discharge  his  necessary  duty 
to  his  country  and  his  Queen. 

2.  One  of  the  nearest  friends  of  Queen  Elizabeth  had 
been  Catherine  Carey,  afterwards  Lady  Knollys,  her  cousin 
in  the  first  degree  of  the  Boleyn  blood.  They  had  been 
sisters'  children,  and  had  loved  each  other  with  more  than 
sisters'  love.  Catherine  had  died  young  in  years,  and 
had  been  buried  by  her  sovereign  in  Westminster  Abbey 
^with  regal  pomp.  Essex  was  Catherine  Carey's  grand- 
son ;  in  everything  but  the  name  he  was  a  grandson  to 
the  childless  Queen.  This  tie  of  blood  the  slanderers  of 

2.  Craik's  Romance  of  the  Peerage,  i.  5;  CouncU  Reg.,  AprU  13,  1589,  April 
14,  1591,  June  21,  1592. 


ELIZABETH'S   LOVE  FOR   ESSEX.  49 

her  fame  forget  to  state.     Yet  Essex  and  the  two  Careys    III.  2. 
were  her  only  male  relations  on  her  mother's  side,  as 

1593 
James  of  Scotland  was  her  sole  surviving  kinsman  of  the         " 

royal  race.  He  had  been  born  into  her  lap  and  into  her 
heart.  She  loved  him,  too,  for  his  father's  sake  ;  Walter, 
Earl  of  Essex,  having  been  a  leal  friend  to  her  in  those 
young  days  when  friends  were  few  and  cold.  As  she 
seared  into  age,  it  pleased  her  eye  to  see  the  sons  of  her 
first  stanch  peers  around  her  throne.  She  had  made 
Hunsdon  chamberlain ;  she  meant  to  make  Cecil  Secre- 
tary of  State.  She  had  loved  Sydney  for  his  father's  vir- 
tues ;  she  endured  Essex  in  remembrance  of  his  father's 
fate.  She  had  indeed  much  to  bear  with  and  forgive. 
More  profuse  than  generous,  more  rash  than  brave,  he 
tried  her  affection  by  his  petulance  and  brawls ;  but  she 
clung  to  the  orphan  boy  with  that  clannish  pride  which 
she  had  always  felt  for  her  mother's  kin.  She  loaded 
him  with  favors.  His  jerks  and  whims,  so  galling  to  the 
council  and  the  court,  amused  the  Queen  as  signs  of  the 
Boleyn  blood.  Her  mother  had  them ;  his  mother,  has 
them.  That  she  ever  loved  him  more  than  a  lady  of 
sixty  years  may  love  her  cousin's  grandchild  is  a  mon- 
strous lie.  No  woman  can  believe  it :  no  man  but  a  monk 
could  have  dreamt  it. 

3.  Yet  this  lie  against  chastity  and  womanhood  has 

3.  Elizabeths  Angliae  reginae,  haeresim  Calvinianam  propngnantis,  in  catholi- 
009  sui  regni  edicturn,  quod  in  alios  quoque  reipublicae  Christian®  principes 
contumelias  continet  indignissimas.  Promulgatum  Londini  29  Nov.  1591.  Cum 
responsione  ad  singula  capita:  qua  non  tanturn  ssevitia  et  impietas  tarn  iniqui 

8  D 


50  FRANCIS   BACON. 

III.  3.  been  repeated  from  generation  to  generation  for  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty  years.  It  oozed  from  the  pen  of  Father 
*e  t'  Parsons.  It  darkens  the  page  of  Lingard.  Like  most  of 
the  scandals  against  her,  —  her  jealousy  of  the  wives  of 
Leicester,  of  Raleigh,  of  Essex  even,  —  it  came  from  those 
wifeless  monks,  men  of  the  confessional  and  the  boudoir, 
who  had  spent  their  nights  in  gloating  with  Sanchez 
through  the  material  mysteries  of  love,  and  in  warping 
the  tenderness  and  faith  of  woman  into  the  filthy  philos- 
ophy of  their  own  "  Disputationes  de  Sancto  Matrimonii 
Sacramento."  Against  such  calumniators  the  Queen 
might  appeal,  like  Marie  Antoinette,  to  every  woman's 
heart.  Jealous  of  Lettice  Knollys,  of  Bessie  Throckmor- 
ton,  of  Frances  Sydney !  Elizabeth  was  indeed  vexed  with 
them ;  but  had  she  not  cause  ?  Had  not  each  of  these 
courtiers  married,  not  only  without  her  knowledge  as 
their  Queen,  but  without  honesty  or  honor  ?  In  secret, 
under  circumstances  of  shame  and  guilt,  Leicester  had 
wedded  her  cousin's  daughter  Lettice.  Would  the  head 
of  any  house  be  pleased  with  such  a  trick  ?  Raleigh  had 
brought  to  shame  a  lady  of  her  court,  young,  lovely, 
brave  as  ever  bloomed  on  a  hero's  hearth  ;  yet  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  disloyal  house,  of  one  who  had  plotted  against 
the  Queen's  crown  and  life.  Could  any  prince  in  the 
world  approve  of  such  an  act  ?  Essex  himself,  a  member 
of  her  race,  .a  descendant  of  Edward  the  Third,  had  mar- 
ried, in  secret  and  against  her  will,  a  woman  of  inferior 

edict!,  sed  mendacia  quoque  et  fraudes  ac  imposture  deteguntur  et  confutantur. 
Per  D.  Andream  Philopatrum.     1592. 


ELIZABETH'S   LOVE   FOE   ESSEX.  51 

birth,  without  beauty,  youth,  or  fortune,  a  widow,  who    III.  3. 
took  him  on  her  way  from  the  arms  of  a  first  husband 
into  those  of  a  third.     What  kinswoman  would  have     ^  t 
smiled  on  such  a  match? 

Love  for  Essex  warmer  than  that  of  an  aged  gentle- 
woman for  a  young  and  dashing  kinsman  would  have 
been  in  her  sin  against  nature  not  less  than  sin  against 
nature's  God.  The  letters  of  Catherine's  grandson  to 
the  Queen,  if  bright  with  poetry,  playfulness,  and  com- 
pliment, are,  in  tone  and  substance,  dutiful  and  chaste. 
In  the  Queen's  letters  to  him  there  is  not  a  line  she  might 
not  have  written  to  a  grandson  of  her  own. 

4.  She  girt  him  with  the  fondness  and  with  the  fear  of 
a  mother.  She  never  sent  him  from  her  side  without  a 
pang  ;  for  she  knew  that  he  would  knock  his  head  against 
stone  walls,  that  he  would  hurry  brave  men  to  a  foolish 
end.  Proud  and  high  though  his  temper  was,  he  could 
neither  lead  others  to  victory  like  Raleigh,  nor  defend  his 
own  face  from  harm  like  Montjoy.  If  he  sailed  for  Cadiz 
with  Nottingham  and  Raleigh  to  slack  his  fire,  the  Queen's 
work  might  be  done,  and  he  himself  shine  the  bravest  of 
the  brave.  If  he  went  to  Rouen  alone,  he  scared  the  sleep 
from  her  pillow,  and  wrung  the  blood  from  her  heart,  by 
his  reckless  waste  of  her  veteran  troops.  She  petted  him 
as  a  boy  hopelessly  brave,  heroically  frail ;  but  she  deemed 
him  such  a  fool,  though  a  charming  one,  that  anything  he 
raved  for  must  be  wrong.  If  he  fumed  and  fretted,  put 

4.  Lives  and  Letters  of  the  Devereux  Earls  of  Essex,  2  vols.,  1853,  vii.-xiv. 


52  FRANCIS   BACON. 

in.  4.  his  head  on  her  footstool,  rushed  into  the  country,  pout- 
ed, and  sulked,  and  raged,  like  a  great  spoiled  child,  she 
would  not  yield  to  his  caprice.  Forever  asking  some- 

Sept.  * 

thing  that  he  should  not  have,  he  would  be  Master  of  the 
Horse ;  he  would  have  the  Cinq  Ports ;  he  would  com- 
mand fleets  and  camps. 

5.  In  an  evil  day  for  Bacon  this  petulant  noble  swears 
he  shall  succeed  to  Coke.  Essex  and  Bacon  have  been 
drawn  together,  less  by  the  magnetism  of  character, 
though  the  Earl  has  a  thousand  showy  and  alluring 
ways,  than  by  their  common  wants.  Bacon  is  poor  and 
works  for  bread.  His  brother  Anthony  is  poor  and  lame. 
In  the  rooms  at  Gray's  Inn  they  lie  sick  together,  racked 
with  pain  and  pestered  by  duns.  Lady  Ann  does  her 
best :  sending  -them  hogsheads  of  March  beer,  with  plen- 
ty of  good  advice  and  scraps  of  Greek ;  but  the  most  she 
can  do  is  little,  and  neither  Greek  nor  good  advice  will 
discharge  their  weekly  bills. 

A  letter  from  Francis  to  Lady  Bacon  gives  a  glimpse 
into  these  troubles,  —  the  sickness,  the  fraternal  love,  the 
worrying  debts. 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  LADY  BACON. 

From  Gray's  Inn,  April  16,  1593. 

My  duty  most  humbly  remembered.  I  assure  myself 
that  your  ladyship,  as  a  wise  and  kind  mother  to  us  both, 

5.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  67,  100. 


LETTER  TO  LADY  BACON.  53 

will  neither  find  it  strange  nor  unwise  that,  tendering    III.  5. 
first  my  brother's  health,  which  I  know  by  mine  own 

i  f^cn 

experience  to  depend  not  a  little  upon  a  free  mind,  and  gept 
then  his  credit,  I  presume  to  put  your  ladyship  in  remem- 
brance of  your  motherly  offer  to  him  the  same  day  you 
departed,  which  was  that  to  help  him  out  of  debt  you 
would  be  content  to  bestow  your  whole  interest  in  markes 
upon  him.  The  which  unless  it  would  please  your  lady- 
ship to  accomplish  out  of  hand,  I  have  just  cause  to  fear 
that  my  brother  will  be  put  to  a  very  shrewde  plunge, 
either  to  forfeit  his  reversion  to  Harwin  (?)  or  else  to 
undersell  it  very  much ;  for  the  avoiding  of  both  which 
great  inconveniences  I  see  no  other  remedy  than  your 
ladyship  surrender  in  time,  the  formal  drafte  whereof  I 
refer  to  my  brother  himself,  whom  I  have  not  any  way 
as  yet  made  acquainted  with  this  my  motion,  neither 
mean  to  do  till  I  hear  from  you.  The  ground  whereof 
being  only  a  brotherly  care  and  affection,  I  hope  your 
ladyship  will  think  and  accept  of  it  accordingly :  be- 
seeching you  to  believe  that  being  so  near  and  dear  part 
of  me  as  he  is,  that  cannot  but  be  a  grief  unto  me  to 
see  a  mind  that  hath  given  so  sufficient  proof  of  wit  (?) 
in  having  brought  forth  many  good  thoughts  for  the 
general  to  be  overburdened  and  cumbered  with  a  care 
of  clearing  his  particular  estate.  Touching  myself,  my 
diet,  I  thank  God,  hitherto  hath  wrought  good  effect, 
and  am  advised  to  continue  this  whole  month,  not  med- 
dling with  any  purgative  physic  more  than  I  must  needs, 
which  will  be  but  a  trifle  during  my  whole  diet;  and 
so  I  most  humbly  take  my  leave.  F.  B. 


54  FRANCIS  BACON. 

III.  6.  6.  No  young  fellow  of  Gray's  Inn,  waiting  for  the 
tide  to  flow,  is  sharper  set  for  funds  than  the  young 

^pt '  knight  for  Middlesex  or  his  elder  brother.  Anthony  tries 
to  raise  his  rents,  and  some  of  the  men  about  him  — 
godless  rogues,  as  Lady  Bacon  says  —  propose  that  he 
shall  let  his  farms  to  the  highest  bidders.  Goodman 
Grinnell,  who  has  the  land  at  Barly,  pays  less  than  he 
ought :  let  him  go  out  and  a  better  man  come  in.  But 
Goodman  Grinnell  speeds  with  his  long  face  to  Lady 
Ann.  "  What !  "  cries  the  good  lady  to  her  son  ;  "  turn 
out  the  Grinnells !  Why,  the  Grinnells  have  lived  at 
Barly  these  hundred  and  twenty  years ! "  So  the  broth- 
ers have  to  look  elsewhere.  Bonds  are  coming  due.  A 
famous  money-lender  lives  in  the  city,  Spencer  by  name, 
rich  as  a  Jew  and  close  as  a  miser ;  him  they  go  to, 
cap  in  hand,  and  with  honeyed  words.  The  miser  is  a 
good  miser  and  allows  his  bond  to  lie.  Francis  writes 
to  him  from  his  brother  Edward's  house  at  Twicken- 
ham Park,  to  which  he  has  removed  from  Gray's  Inn 
for  the  benefit  of  country  air. 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  MR.  SPENCER. 

Twickenham  Park,  Sept.  19,  1593. 

GOOD  MR.  SPENCER, — 

Having  understood  by  my  man  your  kind  offer  to  send 
my  brother  and  me  our  old  bond,  we  both  accept  the 
same  with  hearty  thanks,  and  pray  you  to  cause  a  new 

6.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  109. 


HIS   ILLNESS.  55 

to  be  made  for  half  a  year  more,  which  I  will  both  sign  III.  6. 
and  seal  before  one  Booth,  a  scrivener,  here  at  Isleworth, 
and  deliver  it  him  to  your  use,  which  you  know  will  be  ge  t 
as  good  in  law  as  though  you  were  here  present.  True 
it  is  that  I  cannot  promise  that  my  brother  should  be 
here  at  that  time  to  join  with  me,  by  reason  of  his  daily 
attendance  in  court,  by  occasion  whereof  I  am  to  be 
your  sole  debtor  in  the  new  bond.  As  for  the  mesne 
profits  thereof,  you  will  receive  them  presently.  I  have 
given  charge  to  my  man  to  deliver  it.  And  so  with  my 
right  hearty  commendations  from  my  brother  and  my- 
self, with  like  thanks  for  your  good-will  and  kindness 
towards  us,  which  we  always  shall  be  ready  to  acknowl- 
edge when  and  wherein  we  may,  I  commit  you  to  the 
protection  of  the  Almighty. 

Your  assured  loving  friend, 

FR.  BACON. 

One  likes  to  know  that  this  good  miser  rose  to  be 
an  alderman  of  London,  and  lived  to  see  his  daughter 
married  to  a  peer.  One  dares  not  say,  however,  that 
one  would  like  to  have  been  Lord  Compton,  the  hus- 
band of  her  choice,  and  heir  of  the  miser's  enormous 
hoard. 

7.  Bacon  lies  sick  the  whole  summer  of  1593,  as  a 
note  to  his  old  friend  Lady  Paulett  shows.  Her  lady- 
ship, who  had  been  so  kind  to  him  in  his  younger  days 

7.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  214. 


56  FRANCIS  BACON. 

III.  7.   in  France,  is  now  a  widow ;  his  good  friend  Sir  Amias 

sleeping  the  great  sleep  under  a  splendid  tomb  in  the 

1593'    chancel  of  St.  Martin's   Church.     Bacon  is  proud  and 

Sept. 

glad  to  do  the  widow  service. 


FRANCIS  BACON  TO  LADY  PAULETT. 

Twickenham  Park,  Sept.  23, 1593. 

MADAM, — 

Being  not  able  myself,  by  reason  of  my  long  languish- 
ing infirmity,  to  render  unto  your  ladyship  by  a  per- 
sonal visitation  the  respect  I  owe  unto  your  ladyship,  I 
would  not  fail  to  acquit  some  part  of  my  debt  by  send- 
ing this  bearer,  my  servant,  expressly  to  know  how  your 
ladyship  doth,  which  I  beseech  God  may  be  no  worse 
than  I  wish  and  have  just  cause  to  wish,  considering 
your  ladyship's  ancient  and  especial  kindness  towards 
me.  Which  if  I  have  not  hitherto  acknowledged  it  hath 
been  only  for  want  of  fit  occasions,  but  no  way  of  duti- 
ful affection,  as  I  hope  in  time,  with  God's  help,  I  shall 
be  able  to  verify  by  good  effects  towards  the  young  gen- 
tleman Mr.  Blount,  your  nephew,  or  any  other  that 
appertains  unto  your  ladyship.  This  is,  good  madam, 
much  less  than  you  deserve  and  yet  all  I  can  offer, 
which,  notwithstanding,  I  hope  you  will  accept,  not  that 
it  is  aught  worth  of  itself,  but  in  respect  of  the  un- 
feigned good-will  from  whence  it  proceedeth.  And  so, 
with  my  humble  and  right  hearty  commendations  unto 
your  good  ladyship,  I  beseech  God  to  bless  you  with 


CONNECTION   WITH  ESSEX.  57 

increase  of  comfort  in  mind  and  body,  and  admit  you    HI.  7. 
to  his  holy  protection. 

Your  ladyship's  assured  and  ready  in  all  kind  affec-     ^  t' 
tion  to  do  you  service, 

FR.  BACON. 

8.  Essex  has  need  of  strength  such  as  these  penniless 
men  of  genius  have  to  spare.  Francis  Bacon  has  won 
all  nature  for  his  province.  Anthony  is  a  man  of  many 
parts ;  gay,  supple,  secret ;  fond  of  society  and  of  affairs, 
of  good  wines  and  bright  eyes  ;  at  home  in  cloister  and  in 
court ;  easy  in  morals,  tolerant  in  creed  ;  hail  fellow  with 
the  vagabond  and  the  noble,  the  Bang's  mistress,  the 
professional  conspirator/  the  free  lance,  and  the  travel- 
ling monk.  The  two  brothers  enter  into  the  Earl's  ser- 
vice ;  Francis  as  his  lawyer  and  man  of  political  busi- 
ness, Anthony  as  his  secretary  ;  hoping,  as  many  wise 
men  hope,  to  make  him  the  court  leader  of  that  great 
patriotic  band  of  which  Raleigh,  Drake,  and  Yere  are 
the  fighting  chiefs ;  the  one  part  for  which  he  is  gifted 
beyond  all  other  men.  Under  their  eyes  he  so  far  gains 
in  gravity  and  sense  that  the  Queen  swears  him  of  her 
Privy  Council,  and  even  trusts  to  his  care  much  of  her 
correspondence  abroad.  Day  and  night  their  tongues 
and  pens  are  busy  in  this  work.  Anthony  writes  the 
Earl's  letters,  instructs  his  spies,  drafts  for  him  de- 
spatches to  the  agents  in  foreign  lands.  Francis  shapes 
for  him  a  plan  of  conduct  at  the  court,  and  writes  for 

8.  Lambeth  MSS.  649;  Devereux,  i.  277;  Sydney  Papers,  i.  360. 

3* 


58  FRANCIS  BACON. 

III.  8.    him  a  treatise  of  advice  which  should  have  been  the 
rule  and  would  have  been  the  salvation  of  his  life. 
For  all  these  labors  the  workmen  must  be  paid. 

Sept. 

octs.  9.  Duns  weigh  on  the  two  brothers.  Here  are  two 
notes  to  Lady  Ann,  both  from  Francis,  full  of  the  same 
sad  romance  of  love  and  debt.  One  runs :  — 


FRANCIS  BACON  TO  LADY  BACON. 

From  the  Court,  Oct.  3,  1693. 

MADAM,  — 

I  received  this  afternoon  at  the  Court  your  letter, 
after  I  had  sent  back  your  horse  and  written  to  you 
this  morning.  And  for  my  brother's  kindness  it  is  ac- 
customed ;  he  never  having  yet  refused  his  security  for 
me,  as  I,  on  the  other  side,  never  made  any  difficulty 
to  do  the  like  by  him,  according  to  our  several  occa- 
sions. And  therefore,  if  it  be  not  to  his  own  disfur- 
nishing,  which  I  reckon  all  one  with  mine  own  want,  I 
shall  receive  good  ease  by  that  hundred  pounds  ;  spe- 
cially your  ladyship  of  your  goodness  being  content  it 
shall  be  repaid  of  Mr.  Boldroe's  debt,  which  it  pleased 
you  to  bestow  upon  me.  And  my  desire  is,  it  shall 
be  paid  to  Knight  at  Gray's  Inn,  who  shall  receive 
order  from  me  to  pay  two  fifths  [?]  (which  I  wish  had 
been  two  hundred)  where  I  owe,  and  where  it  presseth 
me  most.  Sir  John  Fortescue  is  not  yet  in  Court; 

9.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  298,  274. 


LETTERS  TO  LADY  BACON.  59 


both  to  him  and  otherwise   I  will   be   mindful  of  Mr.    III.  9. 
Downing's  cause  and  liberty  with  the  first  opportunity. 

Oct.  3. 


1593 

Mr.   Neville,   my  cousin,   though   I  be   further   distant 


than  I  expected,  yet  I  shall  have  an  apt  occasion  to 
remember.  To  my  cousin  Kemp  I  am  sending.  But 
that  would  rest  between  your  ladyship  and  myself,  as 
you  said.  Thus  I  commend  your  ladyship  to  God's 
good  providence. 

Your  Ladyship's  most  obedient, 

FR.  BACON. 


FRANCIS  BACON  TO  LADY  BACON.  NOT.  2. 

Twickenham  Park,  Nov.  2, 1593. 

MADAM, — 

I  most  humbly  thank  your  ladyship  for  your  letter  and 
sending  your  man  Bashawe  to  visit  me,  who  purposeth 
with  God's  help  so  soon  as  possibly  I  can  to  do  my  duty  to 
your  ladyship,  but  the  soonest  I  doubt  will  be  to-morrow 
or  next  Monday  come  sennight.  My  brother,  I  think, 
will  go  to  Saint  Albans  sooner,  with  my  Lord  Keeper, 
who  hath  kindly  offered  him  room  in  his  obscure  lodgings 
there,  as  he  hath  already  resigned  unto  him  the  use  of 
his  chamber  in  the  Court.  God  forbid  that  your  lady- 
ship should  trouble  yourself  with  any  extraordinary  care 
in  respect  of  our  presence,  which  if  we  thought  should  be 
the  least  cause  of  your  discontentment,  we  would  rather 
absent  ourselves  than  occasion  any  way  your  ladyship 
disquietness.  As  for  Sotheram,  I  have  been  and  shall  be 


60  FRANCIS   BACON. 

Ill  9.  always  ready  to  hear  dutifully  your  ladyship's  motherly 
admonitions  touching  him  or  any  other  man  or  matter, 
and  to  respect  them  as  I  ought.  And  so,  with  remem- 
brance of  my  humble  duties,  I  beseech  God  to  bless  and 
preserve  your  ladyship. 

F.  B. 

March.  Essex  is  poor.  Dress,  dinners,  horses,  courtesans 
exhaust  his  coffers.  If  he  cannot  pay  in  coin  he  will 
pay  in  place.  His  servant  Francis  Bacon  shall  be  the 
Queen's  Solicitor.  Essex  swears  it. 

10.  Until  he  swears  it  all  goes  well.  Burghley  sup- 
ports his  nephew.  Egerton  and  Fortescue  urge  his  suit 
with  admiring  friendship  on  the  Queen.  Cecil  is  warm 
in  his  behalf;  not  alone  begging  in  his  own  name,  but 
stirring  up  friends  and  making  a  party  at  the  Court. 
Every  one  at  the  bar,  save  only  Coke,  admits  his  claim  to 
place.  . 

Essex  spoils  all.  At  first  the  Queen  is  gracious ;  extols 
his  eloquence  and  his  wit,  while  doubting  if  he  be  deep  in 
law.  It  only  needs  that  his  nomination  shall  be  made  in 
the  proper  way ;  because  it  is  the  best,  not  because  this 
or  that  lord  of  her  Court  may  wish  it  made.  This  does 
not  please  the  Earl.  Pledged  to  make  Bacon's  fortune, 
he  will  not  stoop  to  see  his  debts  paid  by  another  hand. 
The  work  must  be  his  own :  "  Upon  me,"  he  says,  "  must 
lie  the  labor  of  his  establishment ;  upon  me  the  disgrace 
will  light  of  his  refusal." 

10.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  37,  60, 197;  650,  fol.  109. 


THE   SOLICITORSHIP.  61 

The  Queen  gets  angry  at  this  selfish  pride.     When  he  III.  10. 
talks  of  Bacon  she  shuts  her  ears ;  but  night  and  day 
he  hammers  at  the  name  ;  doing  his  full  of  mischief ;    Mar  ^ 
fretting  and  sulking  till  he  drives  her  mad.     Never  were 
good  intentions  worse  bestowed.     A  brief  note  from  the 
Earl  to  Bacon  brings  the  impatient  Queen  and  her  impor- 
tunate suitor  on  the  scene  :  — 


THE  EARL  OP  ESSEX  TO  FRANCIS  BACON. 

24  March,  1594. 

SIR,— 

The  Queen  did  yesternight  fly  the  gift,  and  I  do  wish, 
if  it  be  no  impediment  to  the  cause  you  do  handle  to- 
morrow, you  did  attend  again  this  afternoon.  I  will  be 
at  the  Court  in  the  evening,  and  go  with  Mr.  Vice-Cham- 
berlain, so  as,  if  you  fail  before  we  come,  yet  afterwards  I 
doubt  not  but  he  or  I  shall  bring  you  together.  This  I 
write  in  haste  because  I  would  have  no  opportunity  omit- 
ted in  this  point  of  access.  I  wish  to  you  as  to  myself, 
and  rest 

Your  most  affectionate  friend, 

ESSEX. 

The  Queen  will  not  see  him.  She  will  not  have  her 
freedom  of  selection  curbed. 

11.  Bacon  is  surprised  and  hurt.     His  hopes  for  the 

11.  Lambeth  MSS.  650,  fol.  126. 


62  FRANCIS  BACON. 

in.  11.  moment  dashed,  he  perceives  no  chance  of  succeeding 

even  at  a  better  time,  unless  the   Queen   can  be  in- 

1594'    duced  to  leave  the   Solicitorship  for  the  present  void. 

May  1. 

To  this  end  he  applies  to  his  cousin  Cecil.     Here   is 

his  note :  — 

x 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  SIR  ROBERT  CECIL. 

Gray's  Inn,  May  1,  1594 
MY  MOST  HONORABLE  GOOD    COUSIN, — 

Your  honor  in  your  wisdom  doth  well  perceive  that 
my  access  at  this  time  is  grown  desperate  in  regard 
of  the  hard  termes  that  as  well  the  Earl  of  Essex  as 
Mr.  Vice-Chamberlain,  who  were  to  have  been  the  means 
thereof,  stand  in  with  her  in  acceding  to  their  occa- 
sions. And  therefore  I  am  now  only  to  fall  upon  that 
point  of  delaying  and  preserving  the  matter  entire  till 
a  better  constellation,  which,  as  it  is  not  hard,  as  I  con- 
ceive, considering  the  proving  business  and  the  instant 
Progress,  &c.,  so  I  commend  in  special  to  your  honor's 
care,  who  in  sort  assured  me  thereof,  and  upon  [whom] 
now  in  my  lord  of  Essex'  absence  I  have  only  to  rely. 
And  if  it  be  needful,  I  humbly  pray  you  to  move  my 
Lord  your  father  to  lay  his  sure  hand  to  the  same 
delay.  And  so  I  wish  you  all  increase  of  honor. 
Your  poor  kinsman  in  faithful  prayers  and  duty, 

FRANCIS  BACON. 

Cecil,  who  knows  that  the  Earl,  and  none  but  the 


LADY   BACON'S  ILLNESS.  63 

Earl,  siands  in  the  way  of  his  cousin's  rise,  writes  back,  III.  11. 
on  the  same  sheet  of  paper,  in  the   left  corner,  these 


SIR  ROBERT  CECIL  TO  FRANCIS  BACON. 

COUSIN,  — 

I  do  think  nothing  cuts  the  throat  more  of  your 
present  access  than  the  Earl's  being  somewhat  troubled 
at  this  time.  For  the  delaying,  I  think  it  not  hard  ; 
neither  shall  there  want  my  best  endeavors  to  make  it 
easy,  of  which  I  hope  you  shall  not  need  to  doubt. 
By  the  judgment  which  I  gather  of  divers  circumstances 
confirming  my  opinion,  I  protest  I  suffer  with  you  in 
mind  that  you  are  thus  yet  gravelled  ;  but  time  will 
founder  all  your  competitors  and  set  you  on  your  feet, 
or  else  I  have  little  understanding. 

12.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  Bacon  is  now  a 
stranger  at  the  court.  Lady  Ann  lies  sick  at  Gorham- 
bury  ;  so  sick,  that  the  "  good  Christian  and  Saint  of 
God,"  as  her  son  affectionately  calls  her,  makes  up  her 
soul  for  death.  Two  of  her  household  have  been 
snatched  away  from  her  side  by  plague  or  fever.  She 
is  down  with  ague.  Bacon  wrestles  with  her  resigna- 
tion, praying  her  to  use  all  helps  and  comforts  that 
are  good  for  her  health,  to  the  end  that  she  may  be 
spared  to  her  children  and  her  friends,  and  to  that 

12.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  232;  650,  fol.  140. 


1594. 
Mayl. 


64  FRANCIS   BACON. 


III.  12.  church  of  God  which  has  so  much  need  of  her..   Here 
is  the  letter  from  which  these  particulars  are  drawn :  — 


1594. 

June  9. 


FRANCIS  BACON  TO  LADY  BACON. 

June  9,  1594. 

• 

My  humble  duty  remembered,  I  was  sorry  to  under- 
stand by  Goodman  Sotheram  that  your  ladyship  did 
find  any  weakness,  which  I  hope  was  but  caused  by 
the  season  and  weather,  which  waxeth  more  hot  and 
faint.  I  was  not  sorry,  I  assure  your  ladyship,  that 
you  came  not  up,  in  regard  that  the  stirring  at  this  time 
of  year,  and  the  place  where  you  should  lie  not  being 
very  open  nor  fresh,  might  rather  hurt  your  ladyship 
than  otherwise.  And  for  anything  to  be  passed  to  Mr. 
Trot,  such  is  his  kindness,  as  he  demandeth  it  not ; 
and  therefore,  as  I  am  to  thank  your  ladyship  for  your 
willingness,  so  it  shall  not  be  needful  but  upon  such 
an  occasion  as  may  be  without  your  trouble,  which  the 
rather  may  be  because  I  purpose,  God  willing,  to  come 
down,  and  it  be  but  for  a  day,  to  visit  your  lady- 
ship, and  to  do  my  duty  to  you.  In  the  mean  time  I 
pray  your  health,  as  you  have  done  the  part  of  a  good 
Christian  and  Saint  of  God  in  the  comfortable  prepar- 
ing for  your  duty.  So  nevertheless,  I  pray,  deny  not 
your  body  the  due,  nor  your  children  and  friends,  and 
the  church  of  God,  which  hath  use  of  you,  but  that 
you  enter  not  into  further  conceit  than  is  cause  ;  and 
withal  use  all  comforts  and  helps  that  are  good  for 


LADY   BACON'S  ILLNESS.  65 

your    health    and    strength.      In    truth    I    have    heard  III.  12. 

Sir  Thomas  Scudamore  often  complain,  after  his  quar- 

1594 

tain  had  ceased,  that  he  found   such   a  heaviness  and    June9 
swelling  under  his  ribs  that  he  thought  he  was  buried 
under  earth   all  from    the   waist ;    and    therefore   that 
accident  no  bad  incident.     Thus  I  commend  your  lady- 
ship to  God's  good  preservation  from  grief. 

Your  ladyship's  most  obedient  son, 

FR.  BACON. 

It  may  be  I  shall  have  occasion,  because  nothing  is 
yet  done  in  the  choice  of  a  Solicitor,  to  visit  the  Court 
this  vacation,  which  I  have  not  now  done  this  month's 
time,  in  which  respect,  because  having  sent  to  and  fro 
spoyleth  it,  I  would  be  glad  of  that  light  bed  of  stripes 
which  your  ladyship  hath,  if  you  have  not  otherwise 
disposed  it. 

13.  The  Saint  of  God  is  spared  to  her  sons  for  a  Aug.  20. 
little  while.  When  Francis  makes  her  a  visit  he  finds 
her  weak  with  pain,  her  memory  failing  like  her  health, 
but  her  tongue  and  pen  as  swift  to  advise  as  ever.  An- 
thony's easy  nature,  his  indulgence  of  his  men,  his 
love  of  finery  and  show  and  pleasure,  wring  the  poor 
lady's  heart.  She  wants  to  see  him  marry  and  amend 
his  ways  ;  but  she  sings  of  a  wife  in  vain  to  this  gay 
companion  of  the  young  Earl  of  Essex,  Rutland,  and 
Southampton.  She  would  not  mind  stripping  her  house 

13.  Lambeth  MSS.  650,  fol.  168,  171,  223. 


66  FRANCIS   BACON. 

in.  13.  of  everything  for  him,  her  pictures,  her  carpets,  and 
her  chairs,  if  her  eldest  born  would  only  marry  a  sober 
1594'  and  religious  girl.  But  all  pretty  faces  are  to  him 
the  same.  When  Francis  rides  away  from  Gorham- 
bury,  she  sends  after  him  a  string  of  pigeons  and  a 
world  of  pious  and  tender  exhortations  for  the  good  of 
body  and  soul. 

LADY  BACON  TO  FRANCIS  BACON. 

20th  Aug.,  1594. 

I  was  so  full  of  back-pain  when  you  came  hither, 
that  my  memory  was  very  slippery.  I  forgot  to  mention 
of  rents.  If  you  have  not,  I  have  not,  received  Frank's 
last  half-year  of  Midsummer,  the  first  half  so  long  un- 
paid. You  will  mar  your  tenants  if  you  suffer  them. 
Mr.  Brocquet  is  suffered  by  your  brother  to  cosen  me 
and  beguile  me  without  check.  I  fear  you  came  too 
late  to  London  for  your  horse :  ever  regard  them.  I 
desire  Mr.  Trot  to  hearken  to  some  honest  man,  and 
cook  too  as  he  may.  If  you  can  hear  of  a  convenient 
place  I  shall  be  willing  if  it  so  please  God ;  for  Lawson 
will  draw  your  brother  wherever  he  chooses,  as  I  really 
fear,  and  that  with  false  semblance.  God  give  you  both 
good  health  and  hearts  to  serve  him  truly,  and  bless 
you  always  with  his  favor.  I  send  you  pigeons  taken 
this  day,  and  let  blood.  Look  well  about  you  and  yours 
too.  I  hear  that  Robert  Knight  is  but  sickly.  I  am 
sorry  for  it.  I  do  not  write  to  my  Lord-Treasurer, 


LETTER   TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  67 

because  you  like  to   stay.     Let  this  letter  be  unseen.  III.  13. 
Look  very  well  to  your  health ;  sup  not,  nor  sit  up  late. 
Surely  I   think  your  drinking  to  bedwards  hindereth   Au°  w 
your  and  your  brother's  digestion  very  much.     I  never 
knew  any  but  sickly  that  used  it,  besides  being  ill  for 
heads  and  eyes.     Observe  well,  yet  in  time.     Farewell 
in  Christ.         •  A.  BACON. 

At  court  affairs  look  gray.  Elizabeth  will  not  have 
a  name  forced  on  her  for  selfish  ends.  She  hears  bad 
news  enough  to  worry  the  stoutest  heart :  now  a  stir 
among  the  Irish  rebels,  now  a  threat  of  a  descent  from 
Spain.  Francis  writes  to  Anthony  :  — 


FEANCIS  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  Aug 

Gray's  Inn,  Aug.  26,  15&4. 

BEOTHEE,  — 

My  cousin  Cook  is  some  four  days  home,  and  ap- 
pointeth  towards  Italy  that  day  sennight.  I  pray  take 
care  for  the  money  to  be  paid  over  within  four  or  five 
days.  The  sum  you  remember  is  150A  I  hear  nothing 
from  the  Court  In  mine  own  business.  There  hath 
been  a  defeat  of  some  force  in  Ireland  by  Macguire 
which  troubleth  the  Queen,  being  unaccustomed  to  such 
news  ;  and  thereupon  the  opportunity  is  alleged  to  be 
lost  to  move  her.  But  there  is  an  answer  by  the  com- 
ing in  of  the  Earl  of  Tyrone  as  was  expected. 

I  steal  to  Twickenham,  purposing  to  return  this  night, 


68  FRANCIS  BACON. 

III.  13.  else  I  had  visited  you  as  I  came  from  the  town.     Thus 
—     in  haste  I  leave  you  to  God's  preservation. 

Your  entire  loving  brother, 

FR.  BACON. 


Anthony  is  not  now  at  Gray's  Inn  Square,  having 
taken  a  house  in  Bishopsgate-street,  a  fashionable  part 
of  the  city,  near  the  famous  Bull  Inn,  where  plays  are 
performed  before  cits  and  gentlemen,  very  much  to  the 
delight  of  Essex  and  his  jovial  crew,  but  very  much, 
as  Lady  Ann  conceives,  to  the  peril  of  her  son's  soul. 
The  good  mother  cannot  put  old  heads  on  young  necks, 
say  what  she  will.  "  I  am  sorry,"  she  writes  to  her 
easy  elder-born,  "  your  brother  and  you  charge  your- 
selves with  superfluous  horses ;  the  wise  will  laugh  at 
you  ;  being  but  trouble  to  you  both  ;  besides  your  debts, 
long  journeys,  and  private  persons.  Earls  be  earls." 
There  is  the  rub.  Lady  Ann  knows,  and  does  not  love, 
these  madcap  earls. 

By  help  of  Cecil,  and  the  Vice-Chamberlain,  Fulke 
Greville,  Bacon  succeeds  so  far  as  to  get  the  nomina- 
tion of  Solicitor  put  off.  For  more  than  a  year  the 
situation  undergoes  no  change. 

14.  The  Queen  is  full  of  care  ;  the  tug  and  tempest 

14.  J.  Cecil  to  Sir  R.  Cecil,  Mar.  1594,  S.  P.  0.;  Examination  of  Capt.  Ed- 
ward Yorke,  Aug.  12,  1594,  S.  P.  0.;  Declaration  of  Henry  Yonge,  Aug.  12, 
1594,  S.  P.  0.;  Confession  of  Richard  Williams,  Aug.  27,  1594,  S.  P.  0.;  Cata- 
logue of  Rebels  and  Fugitives  receiving  Pensions  from  Spain,  Sept.  1594,  S.  P. 
O. ;  Council  Reg.,  Oct.  29, 1594. 


THE   ROMAN  LEAGUE.  69 

of  her  reign  being  close  at  hand.  The  league  of  Pope  III.  14. 
and  King,  baffled  by  the  swift  scene  at  Fotheringay, 
broken  by  the  loss  of  the  Invincible  Armada  and  the 
victories  of  Henri  Quatre,  has  again  been  formed. 
Plans  for  seizing  Guernsey  and  Jersey,  arming  the  Ul- 
ster insurgents,  throwing  troops  into  Wales,  and  rous- 
ing a  London  mob,  ha,ve  been  warmly  debated  in  Ma- 
drid. Medina  Coeli  commands  a  mighty  force  at  Cadiz. 
Philip  at  Madrid,  Cardinal  Archduke  Albrecht  at  Brus- 
sels, are  counting,  pensioning,  directing  the  English 
exiles,  men  amongst  whom  Wright  and  Winter,  Stanley 
and  Tresham,  enjoy  conspicuous  favor.  Father  Parsons, 
Father  Creswell,  and  Father  Holt,  the  most  bigoted  and 
brazen  of  the  English  Jesuits,  busy  themselves  among 
the  needy  and  fanatical  desperadoes  of  foreign  courts 
and  camps,  everywhere  vilifying  the  land  which  has 
cast  them  out,  and  whetting  against  their  Queen  the 
assassin's  knife.  Nor  do  they  toil  in  vain.  Two  mili- 
tary ruffians,  Captain  Richard  Williams  and  Captain 
Edward  Yorke,  offering  to  become  the  Clements  —  the 
Ravaillacs  —  of  a  more  atrocious  crime,  have  crossed 
the  sea,  and  when  taken,  knife  in  hand,  and  flung  into 
the  Tower,  confess  that  they  have  come  into  England 
commissioned  by  their  spiritual  and  military  chiefs  for 
murder.  They  implicate  by  name  Sir  William  Stanley 
and  Father  Holt. 

15.  Bacon  is  sick  of  heart ;  looks  wan  and  thin,  as    June  3. 

16.  Lambeth  MSS.  651,  fol.  144.    Patent  Rolls  38  Eliz.  par.  vi.  25. 


70  FRANCIS  BACON. 

1IL  15.  all  the  world  takes  note.     The  heady  Earl  has  proved 
to  him  a  fatal  friend.     Lady  Ann  pours  on  her  son  her 


counsels  and  consolations. 

June  3. 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

June  3,  1595. 

I  am  sorry  your  brother  with  inward  secret  grief 
hindereth  his  health.  Everybody  saith  he  looketh  thin 
and  pale.  Let  him  look  to  God  and  confer  with  him 
in  godly  exercise  of  hearing  and  reading,  and  continue 
to  be  noted  to  take  care.  I  had  rather  ye  both,  with 
God's  blessed  favor,  had  very  good  healths,  and  were 
well  out  of  debt,  than  any  office.  Yet  though  the  earl 
showed  great  affection,  he  marred  all  with  violent 
courses. 

I  pray  God  increase  His  fear  in  his  heart  and  a  ha- 
tred of  sin ;  indeed,  halting  before  the  Lord  and  back- 
sliding are  very  pernicious.  I  am  heartily  sorry  to  hear 
how  he  [the  Earl  of  Essex]  sweareth  and  gameth  un- 
reasonably. God  cannot  like  it. 

I  pray  show  your  brother  this  letter,  but  to  no  crea- 
ture else.  Remember  me  and  yourself. 

Your  mother, 

A.  B. 

If  the  Queen  hangs  back,  and  if  Burghley  hesitates, 
it  is  not  from  dislike  or  distrust  to  Bacon  ;  but  simply 
because  so  grave  a  nomination  as  a  successor  to  Coke 


GRANT  FROM  THE  CROWN.  71 

ought  not  to  be  made  as  a  bounty  or  a  submission  to  HI.  15. 
the   Earl.     The   more  they  feel  that   such  a  post  can 
never  be  filled  in  such  a  way,  the  more  they  strive  to 
let  the  world  see  that  the  advocate,  not  the  candidate 
is  in  fault. 

At  the  express  suggestion  of  Burghley  and  Fortescue,  July  14. 
the  Queen  appoints  Bacon  one  of  her  Counsel  Learned 
in  the  Law,  and  confers  on  him,  at  a  nominal  rent,  a 
good  estate.  This  grant  comprises  sixty  acres,  more 
or  less  of  wood,  in  the  forest  of  Zelwood  in  the  coun- 
ty of  Somerset,  known  as  the  Pitts ;  which  Bacon  re- 
ceives from  the  Crown  on  a  rent  of  seven  pounds 
ten  shillings  a  year,  payable  at  the  feasts  of  St.  Mi- 
chael the  Archangel,  and  of  the  Annunciation  of  the 
Virgin. 

16.   If  Elizabeth  pauses  in  her  choice  of  a  Solicitor-    Aug.  7. 
General,  her  servants  see  that  Bacon's  hopes  are  for  the 
moment  dead.     Lady  Ann  hears  this  bad  news  at  Gor- 
hambury,  and  writes  to  console  her  son. 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

Aug.  7,  1595. 

If  Her  Majesty  have  resolved  upon  the  negative  for 
your  brother,  as  I  hear,  truly,  save  for  the  brust  a  little, 
I  am  glad  of  it.  God  in  His  time  hath  better  in  store  I 

16.  Lambeth  MSS.  651,  fol.  211. 


72  FRANCIS  BACON. 

m.  16.  trust.  For  considering  his  kind  of  health  and  what  cum- 
ber pertains  to  that  office,  it  is  best  for  him  I  hope.  Let 

A1u5957  us  all  pray  the  Lord  we  make  us  to  profit  by  His  fatherly 
correction ;  doubtless  it  is  His  hand,  and  all  for  the  best, 
and  love  to  His  children  that  will  seek  Him  first,  and 
depend  upon  His  goodness.  Godly  and  wisely  love  ye, 
like  brethren,  whatsoever  happen,  and  be  of  good  courage 
in  the  Lord,  with  good  hope. 

A.  B. 


And  how  does  Bacon  bear  this  prospect  of  defeat  ? 
Merrily,  it  seems.  There  is  a  glimpse  of  him  in  his 
mother's  notes  to  Anthony:  "With  a  humble  heart 
before  God,  let  your  brother  be  of  good  cheer.  Alas  ! 
what  excess  of  bucks  at  Gray's  Inn !  And  to  feast  it  on 
the  Sabbath !  God  forgive  and  have  mercy  upon  Eng- 
land ! " 

sept.  17.  A  fleet  has  gone  from  Plymouth  under  Drake.  A 
fleet  more  terrible  to  the  Don  is  arming  under  Raleigh. 
Drake  is  a  marauder,  Raleigh  a  statesman.  If  he  can 
burn  Nombre  di  Dios  and  spoil  the  carracks  of  Mar- 
garita, Drake  will  be  at  peace.  Raleigh,  fresh  from 
his  romantic  voyage  to  the  Amazon,  flushed  with  the 
hope  of  conquest  and  discovery,  is  bent  on  founding 
States. 
Bacon,  who  sees  in  Raleigh,  not  alone  the  nimble  wit, 

17.  Elizabeth  to  Raleigh,  Nov.,  1595,  S.  P.  0. ;  Notes  of  the  Supplemental  part 
of  the  Entertainment  given  at  York  House,  Nov.  17, 1595,  S.  P.  0. 


MASQUE  AT  YORK  HOUSE.  73 

the  proud  courtier,  the  dashing  seaman,  but  the  leader  of  HI.  17. 
vast  horizon,  of  philosophic  thought,  would  like  to  keep 
Essex  on  easy  terms  with  him  ;  the  two  men  holding,  as  ^  ^ 
far  as  might  be,  a  common  course  in  politics  and  in  war. 
Their  loves  and  hates  are  the  same.  Each  longs  for  war  ; 
a  war  of  books  and  laws  against  Rome,  a  .war  of  pikes 
and  culverins  against  Spain.  Each  in  his  own  person 
represents  the  youth  and  genius  of  the  time :  Essex  that 
of  the  nobles,  Raleigh  of  the  gentry.  Each  of  the  two 
seems  to  Bacon  needful  to  the  other  and  to  the  common 
cause :  the  Queen's  kinsman  to  uphold  it  against  timid 
counsels  at  court,  the  founder  of  Virginia  to  maintain 
it  against  Philip's  admirals  on  the  Spanish  Main.  A 
frank  and  loyal  union  of  these  two  men  would  have  given 
England  the  free  use  of  all  her  arms  ;  in  the  long  run  it 
would  have  saved  them  both  from  the  block.  With 
tongue  and  pen  Bacon  labors  to  make  peace  between 
them.  He  seeks  to  push  the  new  expedition.  In  spite 
of  Raleigh's  pride,  which  often  mars  his  work,  he  repeats 
to  Essex  that  Raleigh  will  be  his  stanchest  and  safest 
friend. 

Essex  is  preparing  to  receive  the  Queen  at  York  House 
in  the  Strand  with  a  grand  entertainment  and  a  sump- 
tuous masque  given  in  her  honor ;  for  which  Bacon  is 
composing  characters  and  words.  The  play  being  given 
in  Essex's  name,  here  are  the  means  for  a  striking  and 
conspicuous  compliment  to  Raleigh.  Bacon  frames  a 
scene  of  the  masque  in  happy  allusion  to  the  Amazon 
and  to  Raleigh's  voyage. 
4 


74  FRANCIS  BACON. 

ill.  18.  18.  Essex  has  not  the  grace  to  let  it  stand.  The  glory 
of  Raleigh  breaks  his  rest,  for  he  himself  aspires  to  be 

I  ^OP\ 

all  that  Raleigh  is,  —  renowned  in  war  even  more  than 

Nov. 

in  letters  and  in  courts.  He  strikes  his.  pen  through 
Bacon's  lines,  which  drop  from  the  acted  scene  and 
from  the  printed  masque.  A  contemporary  copy  of  this 
suppressed  part  remains  in  the  State  Paper  Office  ;  a 
proof  how  much,  five  years  before  the  Earl  rushes  into 
high  treason,  Bacon  leans  to  the  side  of  her  Majesty's 
Captain  of  the  Guard. 

The  opportunity  thrown  away  by  Essex,  Burghley,  and 
Cecil  hug  to  their  hearts.  They  give,  not  only  their 
countenance  to  Raleigh,  but  their  money  to  the  Guiana 
voyage  ;  Burghley  contributing  five  hundred  pounds, 
Cecil  a  new  ship,  the  hull  of  which  alone  costs  him 
no  less  than  eight  hundred  pounds. 

NOT.  5.  19.  The  Earl's  want  of  tact  and  temper  is  more  hurt- 
ful to  his  friends  than  to  his  foes.  He  does  Raleigh 
no  great  harm  ;  he  causes  Bacon  the  most  grievous 
loss.  Give  me  this  place  of  the  Solicitor,  —  he  drums 
and  drums  at  the  Queen's  ear.  She  thinks  her  law  offi- 
cers should  be  chosen  by  herself,  and  for  their  good 
parts,  not  to  please  the  fancy  or  make  good  the  pledges 
of  a  carpet  knight.  She  will  not  do  a  right  thing  for 
a  bad  reason  or  in  a  wrong  way.  Her  courts  are 

18.  Entertainment  given  to  the  Queen  at  York  House,  Nov.  17.  1595;  Sydney 
Tapers,  i.  377. 

19.  Warrant  Book,  Nov.  5,  1595. 


FLEMING  MADE  SOLICITOR-GENERAL.  75 

crowded  with  able   men.     She  is  old  enough  to  choose  in.  19. 
a  servant  for  herself.     As  Essex  grows  hot,  she  cools  : 

1  K  (yr 

when  he  storms  upon  her   and  will  not  be  denied,  she     Nov ' 
turns  from  the  spoiled  boy,  her  nomination  made.     Ba- 
con must  wait ;  Fleming  shall  be  her  man. 

20.  Lord  Campbell  says,  as  writers  have  said  from  the 
days  of  Bushel,  that  the  Earl  atoned  to  Bacon  for  his 
failure  by  a  gift  of  Twickenham  Park.  It  happens,  how- 
ever, that  Twickenham  Park  was  not,  and  never  had 
been,  the  Earl's  to  give.  That  lovely  seat,  which  blooms 
by  the  Thames,  close  under  Richmond  Bridge,  fronting 
the  old  palace,  and  some  of  the  elms  of  which  stand, 
venerable  and  green,  in  the  days  of  Victoria,  had  be- 
longed to  the  Bacons  for  many  years.  In  1574,  while 
Essex  was  a  boy  at  Chartley,  Twickenham  Park,  together 
with  More  Mead  and  Ferry  Mead,  the  adjoining  lands, 
had  been  granted  by  the  Queen  to  Edward  Bacon  on 
lease.  The  lease  is  enrolled,  and  may  be  examined  in 
the  Record  Office.  Francis  lived  in  the  house,  as  his 
letters  prove,  long  before  his  patent  of  Solicitor  passed 
the  Seal.  It  had  all  the  points  of  a  good  country-house ; 
a  green  landscape,  wood  and  water,  pure  air,  a  dry  soil, 
vicinity  to  the  court  and  to  the  town.  From  his  win- 
dows he  could  peer  into  the  Queen's  alleys ;  in  an  hour 
he  could  trot  up  to  Whitehall  or  Gray's  Inn.  Every 
plant  that  thrives,  every  flower  that  blows,  in  the  south 
of  England,  loves  the  Twickenham  soil.  There  were 

20.  Rolls,  Mar.  3, 16  Eliz.,  Record  Office. 


76  FRANCIS   BACON. 

III.  20.  cedars  in  the  great  park,  swans  on   the   river,  singing- 
birds  in  the  copse ;  every  sight  to  engage  the  eye,  every 

1595. 

sound  to  please  the  ear. 

>OV* 

He  loved  the  house,  and  lived  in  it  when  he  could 
steal  away  from  Gray's  Inn.  It  was  his  house  of  letters 
and  philosophy,  as  the  lodging  in  Gray's  Inn  Square  was 
his  house  of  politics  and  law.  In  fact,  when  the  Earl 
ferried  over  from  Richmond  Palace,  he  leaped  from  his 
barge  on  to  Bacon's  lawn. 

21.  Unable  to  pay  his  debt  by  a  public  office,  Essex 
feels  that  he  ought  to  pay  it  in  money  or  in  money's 
worth.  The  lawyer  has  done  his  work,  must  be  told  his 
fee.  But  the  Earl  has  no  funds.  His  debts,  his  amours, 
his  camp  of  servants  eat  him  up.  He  will  pay  in  a 
patch  of  land.  To  this  Bacon  objects :  not  that  he  need 
scruple  at  taking  wages  ;  not  that  the  mode  of  payment 
is  unusual ;  not  that  the  price  is  beyond  his  claim. 
Four  years  have  been  spent  in  the  Earl's  service.  To 
pay  in  land  is  the  fashion  of  a  time  when  gold  is  scarce 
and  soil  is  cheap.  Nor  is  the  patch  too  large ;  at  most 
it  may  be  worth  1,2007,  or  1,5007.  After  Bacon's  im- 
provements and  the  rise  of  rents,  he  sells  it  to  Reynold 
Nicholas  for  1,8007.  It  is  less  than  the  third  of  a  year's 
income  from  the  Solicitor-General's  place.  Bacon's 
doubts  have  a  deeper  source.  Knowing  the  Earl's  fiery 

21.  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  his  Apologie  in  certain  imputations  concerning  the 
late  Earl  of  Essex,  written  to  his  very  good  Lord  the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  1604, 
13,  16. 


ESSEX'S   GIFT   OF   LAND.  77 

temper,  and  sharing  in  some  degree  his  mother's  fears,  III.  21. 
he  shrinks  from  incurring  feudal  obligations  to  one  so 
vain  and  weak.  Hurt  by  his  hesitation,  Essex  pouts  Nov ' 
and  sulks  ;  being,  as  he  truly  says,  the  sole  cause  of  this 
loss  of  place,  he  will  die  of  vexation  if  he  be  not  allowed 
in  some  small  measure  to  repair  it.  Bacon  submits.  Yet 
even  in  taking  the  strip  of  ground,  he  betrays  the  un- 
easy sentiment  lurking  in  his  heart.  "  My  Lord,"  he 
says,  "  I  see  I  must  be  your  homager  and  hold  land  of 
your  gift ;  but  do  you  know  the  manner  of  doing  hom- 
age in  law  ?  Always  it  is  with  saving  of  his  faith  to 
the  King." 

22.  What .  says  the  Queen  ?  Writers  who  laud  the 
generosity  of  a  man  to  whom  Bacon  owed  loss  of  char- 
acter and  loss  of  place,  denounce  the  stinginess  of  a 
woman  to  whose  noble  and  unfailing  friendship  he  owed 
almost  everything  which  he  possessed  on  earth.  These 
scribes  are  hard  to  please :  they  treat  Bacon  as  a  rogue 
whom  it  is  the  duty  of  honest  men  to  scourge ;  yet  decry 
the  Queen  for  laying  on  the  lash.  What  would  they 
have  ?  If  Bacon  were  the  rascal  they  have  made  him, 
surely  the  Queen  would  have  done  well  in  starving  his 
powers  of  mischief!  Their  reasoning  is  faulty  as  their 
facts.  Inquiry  at  the  Rolls  Office  would  have  shown 
them  that,  even  while  she  was  naming  Fleming  for  her 
Solicitor-General,  Elizabeth  was  Francis  Bacon's  most 
warm  and  munificent  friend. 

22.  Montagu,  xvi.  part  i.  27. 


1595. 
Nor. 


78  FRANCIS  BACON. 

Ill  22.  She  long  ago  gave  him  a  reversion  of  the  Registry  of 
the  Star  Chamber ;  a  post,  when  he  should  get  it,  worth 
1,600/.  a  year.  As  he  could  no  more  spare  his  jest  than 
Tully,  he  said  it  was  like  having  another  man's  land  near 
his  house :  it  improved  his  prospect,  but  did  not  fill  his 
barn.  With  woful  lack  of  humor,  Rawley  mistook  this 
truly  Baconian  laughter  for  a  groan  ;  and  the  poor  chap- 
lain's petulant  wail  misled  Montagu  into  dreaming,  con- 
trary to  all  the  evidence  of  Rolls  and  grants,  that  Eliza- 
beth put  the  yoke  on  Bacon's  neck.  This  blunder  of 
Rawley  drove  Montagu  to  the  drollest  shifts.  Knowing 
how  Bacon  cherished  her  fame  in  his  heart  of  hearts, 
how  was  the  biographer  to  reconcile  this  fable  of  her 
stinginess  to  him  with  the  fact  of  his  undying  gratitude 
to  her  ?  He  hit  on  the  queerest  explanation.  Does  a 
father  who  loves  his  son  spare  the  rod  ?  Are  not  pangs 
and  stripes  good  for  the  soul?  Yes,  the  great  Queen 
must  have  understood  the  great  man ;  in  mercy  to  the 
world,  she  crossed  him  at  the  bar  and  starved  him  at  the 
court !  Macaulay  rent  and  tossed  this  amazing  theory  ; 
but  neither  he  nor  Lord  Campbell  ever  paused  to  ask 
if  it  were  true  that  Elizabeth  left  him  to  starve. 

23.  The  reversion  of  the  Star  Chamber,  the  grant  of 
Zelwood  Forest,  the  post  of  her  Counsel  learned  in  the 
Law,  are  but  a  foretaste  of  her  love.  Edward  Bacon's 
lease  of  Twickenham  Park  has  just  expired  ;  that  lovely 
home  by  the  water-edge  will  be  his  no  more.  The  house 

23.  Rot.  38  Eliz.,  pars  vi.  20,  Record  Office. 


THE   QUEEN'S   GRANTS.  79 

has  an  importance  beyond  the  beauty  of  its  site  ;  a  merit  III.  23. 
rarer  than  the  green  mead,  the  leafy  wood,  the  rushing 
stream,  the  whitening  swans  ;  it  stands  all  day  in  the    Nav  17 
sovereign's  sight.     To  live  in  such  a  place  is  to  be  a  daily 
guest  in  her  Majesty's  mind.     The  house  is  good,  the 
park  spacious  ;  within  the  pales  are  eighty-seven  acres  of 
lawn  and  pasture,  lake  and  orchard  ;  beyond  the  pales 
five  or  six  acres  of  mead  and  field.     It  is  a  home  for  a 
prince. 

Fourteen  years  ago  the  park  had  been  leased  to  Milo 
Dodding  for  thirty  years,  commencing  from  the  expira- 
tion of  Edward  Bacon's  term ;  but  on  passing  to  Fleming 
the  patent  of  his  place,  the  gracious  Queen  makes  over  to 
Francis  Bacon  a  reversion  of  this  lease.  On  the  fifth 
of  November  Fleming  gets  his  commission  as  Solicitor- 
General  ;  on  the  seventeenth  of  November,  the  day  of 
his  masque  at  York  House,  of  his  proposed  compliment 
to  the  Guiana  voyage,  Bacon's  grant  of  the  reversion  of 
Twickenham  Park  passes  under  the  Privy  Seal. 


80  FEANCIS  BACON. 


CHAPTER    IY. 

TREASON    OP    SIR    JOHN    SMYTH. 

IV.  1.       1.  THE   Queen  not  only  endows   Bacon  with  lands, 
and  with  the  reversion  of  lands  and  offices,  but  em- 

1  CQ/* 

ploys  him  in  her  legal  and  political  affairs ;  often  in 
business  which  would  seem  to  belong  exclusively  to 
the  department  of  Fleming  or  of  Coke.  As  her  Coun- 
sel learned  in  the  Law,  he  is  engaged  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  William  Randal.  He  is  consulted  in  the  more 
momentous  charge  against  Sir  John  Smyth,  who  stands 
accused  of  no  less  a  crime  than  that  of  an  attempt, 
under  circumstances  of  peculiar  guilt,  to  provoke  a  mil- 
itary mutiny  and  insurrection  against  the  Queen. 

2.  In  the  spring  of  1596  an  expedition,  meant  to  an- 
ticipate the  Roman  league,  has  been  arming  in  the 
Thames.  Its  destination  is  unknown,  though  the  few 
suspect  that  a  blow  will  fall  on  the  most  prosperous  and 
beautiful  of  Spanish  ports.  Raleigh  is  still  at  home ; 
Keymish  having  gone  with  his  fleet  of  ships  to  the 

1.  Egerton,  Fleming,  and  Bacon  to  the  Council,  May  3,  1596,  S.  P.  0. ;  Lucas 
to  the  Council,  June  23, 1596,  S.  P.  0. 

2.  Lambeth  MSS.  657,  fol.  29,  30. 


LETTER  •  TO  HIS  BROTHER   ANTHONY.  81 

mouths  of  the  Amazon.    Yere  and  Emngham  are  drilling    IV.  2. 
troops.     Essex  —  martial,   if  not   military  —  is  pouting 
for  command.     Anthony  and  Francis  Bacon  busy  them-    ^  ^ 
selves  in  collecting  news   for    the   Queen  from  foreign 
spies  and  foreign   Gazettes.     While   the  Earl  of  Essex 
lies   at  Plymouth,    'waiting    for   Raleigh  and   the  rear- 
guard of  his  fleet  to  come  round,  Francis  writes  to  his 
brother :  — 


FRANCIS  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

May  15,  1596. 

MY  VERY  GOOD  BROTHER, — 

I  have  remembered  your  salutation  to  Sir  John 
Fortescue,  and  delivered  him  the  Gazette,  desiring 
him  to  reserve  it  to  read  in  his  barge.  He  acknowl- 
edgeth  it  to  be  of  another  sort  than  the  common.  I 
delivered  him  account  so  much  of  E.  Hawkins's  letter 
as  contained  advertisements  copied  out ;  which  is  the 
reason  I  return  the  letter  to  you  now ;  the  Gazette  being 
gone  with  him  to  the  court. 

The  next  words  consecutive   I  have   not  acquainted 
him  with,  nor  any  of  them.     The  body  is  for  more  apt 
time.     So,  in  haste,  I  wish  you  comfort  as  I  write. 
Your  entire  loving  brother, 

FR.  BACON. 

Fourteen  days  later,  the  fleet  now  riding  in  Plymouth 
Sound,  he  writes  again.  Anthony,  tiring  of  the  Earl's 


82  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IV.  2.    unprofitable  service,  wishes  to  be  sent  abroad  as  agent 

or  ambassador,  —  a  post  for  which  he  is  eminently  fit. 
1596 

Ma  m    To  his  suit  for  such  a  place  Francis  refers :  — 
FRANCIS  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

From  the  Court,  May  31st,  1596. 

GOOD  BROTHER, — 

Yesternight  Sir  John  Fortescue  told  me  you  had  not 
many  hours  before  imparted  to  the  Queen  your  adver- 
tisement, and  the  Gazettes  likewise,  which  the  Queen 
desired  Mr.  H.  Stanhope  to  read  all  over  unto  her ;  and 
her  Majesty  commandeth  they  be  not  made  vulgar.  The 
advertisement  her  Majesty  made  estimation  of,  as  con- 
curring with  the  other  advertisements,  and  belike  con- 
curring also  with  her  opinion  of  the  affairs.  So  he 
willed  me  to  return  to  you  the  Queen's  speeches.  Other 
particulars  of  any  speech  from  her  Majesty  of  yourself 
he  did  not  repeat  to  me.  For  my  Lord  of  Essex  and 
the  Lord-Treasurer,  he  said  he  was  ready  and  disposed 
to  do  his  best.  But  I  seemed  to  make  it  only  a  love- 
suit,  and  passed  presently  from  it,  the  rather  because 
it  was  late  in  the  night,  and  I  was  to  deal  with  him  on 
some  better  occasion  after  another  manner,  as  you  shall 
hereafter  understand  from  me.  I  do  find  in  the  speech 
of  some  ladies,  and  the  very  fairest  of  this  court,  some 
additions  of  reputation  as  methinks  to  be  both ;  and 
I  doubt  not  but  God  hath  an  operation  (?)  in  it  that 
will  not  suffer  good  endeavors  to  perish.  The  Queen 


LETTER  TO  HIS  BROTHER  ANTHONY.         83 

saluted  me  to-day  as  she  went  to  supper.     I  had  long    IV.  2. 
speech  with  Sir  Robert  Cecil  this  morning,  who  seemed 
apt  to   discourse   with  me.     Yet  of   your  hest  not   a    Ma  31 
word  (?)     This  I  write  to  you  in  haste,  aliud  ex  olio. 
I  pray  you,  in  the  course  of  acquainting  my  Lord,  say 
where   presseth,  at  first  by  me,  after  from  yourself,  I 
am  more  and  more  bound  to  him.     Thus,  wishing  you 
good  health,  I  commend  you  to  God's  happiness. 
Your  entire  loving  brother, 

FR.  BACON. 

3.  Against  the  Queen's  sounder  sense,  Essex  gets  com- 
mand of  the  land  forces  told  off  for  a  dash  at  Cadiz.  On 
the  eve  of  sailing,  conscious  that,  though  he  may  have 
meant  the  best,  he  has  done  for  Bacon  the  worst  that 
man  could  do,  he  writes  in  kindly  but  superfluous  words 
to  recommend  him  to  the  care  of  his  oldest  and  sagest 
friend.  Thus,  in  generous  helplessness,  he  writes  to 
Egerton :  — 

ESSEX  TO  LOED  KEEPER  EGERTON. 

May  27,  1596. 

MY  VERY  GOOD  LORD, — 

I  do  understand  by  my  good  friend  Mr.  F.  B.  how 
much  he  is  bound  to  your  Lordship  for  your  favor.  I  do 
send  your  Lordship  my  best  thanks,  and  do  protest  unto 
you  there  is  no  gentleman  in  England  of  whose  good  for- 

3.  Lambeth  MSS.  657,  90. 


84  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  3.    tune  I  have  been  more  desirous.     I  do  still  retain  the 

same  mind;  but,  because  my  intercession  hath  rather 

1596'    hurt  him  than  done  him  good,  I  dare   not  move   the 

May. 

Queen  for  him.  To  your  Lordship  I  earnestly  commend 
the  care  I  have  of  his  advancement ;  for  his  parts  were 
never  destined  to  a  private  and  (if  I  may  so  speak)  an 
idle  life.  That  life  I  call  idle  that  is  not  spent  in  public 
business  ;  for  otherwise  he  will  ever  give  himself  worthy 
tasks.  Your  Lordship,  in  performing  what  I  desire,  will 
oblige  us  both,  and  within  very  short  time  see  such  fruit 
of  your  own  work  as  will  please  you  well.  So,  com- 
mending your  Lordship  to  God's  best  protection,  I  rest, 
at  your  Lordship's  commandment, 

ESSEX. 

jane.  4.  At  length  they  are  gone ;  Effingham,  Raleigh,  Yere, 
Montjoy,  all  the  great  fighting  men,  on  board ;  leaving 
England  for  the  moment  bare  of  fleets  or  troops.  Twelve 
days  have  worn  since  the  ships  weighed  anchor  in  Plym- 
outh Sound,  and  not  one  word  of  news  has  come  to 
shore.  They  may  be  hundreds  of  fathoms  deep  in  the 
Bay  of  Biscay,  or  lie  crushed  and  strewn  under  Lisbon 
rock.  Should  they  have  perished  as  the  Invincible  Ar- 
mada perished !  It  is  known  that  the  Twelve  Apostles, 
gigantic  Andalusian  war-ships,  float  in  Cadiz  bay  ;  that  a 
fleet  of  transports  rides  at  the  Groyne  ;  that  a  Spanish 

4.  Gilbert  to  Raleigh,  Mar.  16, 1596,  S.  P.  0. ;  Gorges  to  Burghley,  April  12, 
1596,  S.  P.  0.;  Proclamation  by  the  Earl  of  Essex,  April  14,  1596,  S.  P.  0.; 
Queen  Elizabeth  to  Cobham,  June  7,  1596,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Reg.,  June  1  to 
August  7,  1596. 


DEFENSIVE  PREPARATIONS.  85 

army  of  horse  and  foot  crouches  behind  the  heights  of    IV.  4. 
San  Sebastian  and  the  walls  of  Bilboa ;  that  a  body  of 

1596 

victorious  troops,  flushed  with  the  assault  of  Calais,  occu-  June' 
pies  the  dunes  which  look  on  Dover  cliffs.  It  is  felt  that 
a  storm,  a  repulse,  even  a  dead  calm,  may  give  the  signal 
for  a  swarm  of  Pandours  and  Walloons  to  burst  into  Kent. 
Some,  in  this  day  of  dark  suspense,  dispute  the 
policy  of  having  sent  the  fleet  on  such  a  cruise,  —  many 
blame  the  ambition  which  pulls  the  weaver  from  his 
loom,  the  hind  from  his  plough.  Every  one  has  to 
submit  to  loss  of  money  or  loss  of  time.  The  train- 
bands garrison  the  city  and  protect  the  Court.  Lord 
Cobhani  holds  the  Cinque  Ports.  Sir  Thomas  Lucas 
puts  the  men  of  Colchester  under  drill.  The  bombar- 
diers of  Dover,  Plymouth,  and  Milford  Haven  stand  to 
their  guns.  Musters  for  defence  gather  even  in  the 
midland  and  northern  shires  ;  where,  at  a  call  from  the 
Privy  Council,  yeomen  snatch  down  their  bills  and 
pikes,  often  rusty  and  out  of  date,  bills  which  had  been 
swung  in  Bos  worth  field,  bows  which  had  been  drawn 
at  Agincourt.  On  every  village  green,  and  under  every 
market-cross,  drums  beat  and  tabors  sound  the  local 
force  to  arms. 

5.  Now  is  the  time   for  friends  of  Rome   to   strike.   junei2. 
Where  there  is  much  to  bear,  a  man  of  weak  under- 

5.  Elizabeth's  Letters  Patent  to  raise  troops  in  Kent,  Sussex,  Middlesex,  and 
Surrey,  for  relief  of  Calais,  April  1596,  S.  P.  0. ;  Smyth  to  Cecil,  Mar.  14,  1600, 
S.  P.  0. ;  Discourse  of  the  Providence  necessary  to  be  had  for  the  setting  up  of 
the  Catholic  Faith,  Aug.  1600,  S.  P.  0. 


86  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  5.  standing  will  infer  that,  despite  ambition  and  pride  of 
race,  there  must  be  fires  of  discontent  ready  to  flare 
out.  When  discontent  is  armed,  it  may  be  led  to  abuse 

June  12. 

its  strength  ;  so  at  least  reasons  the  rich  country  gentle- 
man, Sir  John  Smyth. 

Smyth  is  a  Roman  Catholic,  owner  of  Baddow  and 
Coggeshall,  in  Essex ;  a  friend  of  the  great  Seymour 
family ;  an  ally  of  Catherine  de'  Medici ;  a  correspond- 
ent of  the  foreign  Jesuits  and  priests.  His  life  has 
been  one  long  plot.  In  the  war  now  booming,  all  his 
love  lies  beyond  the  sea.  The  doctrine  taught  by  Par- 
sons and  Bellarmino,  that  a  good  Roman  Catholic  must 
fight  and  pray  for  his  Church,  even  against  his  native 
sovereign  and  his  native  land,  is  an  active  portion  of 
his  creed.  Others  may  wish  to  maini  the  government, 
may  pray  for  storms  to  whelm  or  cannon  to  crush  the 
English  fleet ;  Smyth  alone  is  fool  enough  to  risk  his 
neck  by  active  measures  in  support  of  the  allies  of  his 
Church.  The  fighting  men  gone,  he  beholds  the  Queen, 
the  lords  of  her  Council,  all  the  peers  of  her  realm, 
at  the  mercy,  as  he  thinks,  of  an  armed,  uncertain 
mob.  A  march  on  London,  a  fight  under  the  windows 
of  Whitehall,  may  cause  the  fleets  to  hie  back  to  Plym- 
outh, or  the  Spaniards  to  cross  the  Straits. 

Cries  are  never  wanting  to  a  traitor.  There  is  the 
old,  old  feud  of  poor  against  rich ;  the  old,  old  aversion 
of  local  troops  to  serve  the  Crown  in  its  foreign  wars. 
Unhappily  both  these  feuds  are  now  malignant :  that 
between  rich  and  poor  being  imbittered  by  the  recent 


SMYTH'S   TREASON.  87 

conversion  of  a  vast  extent  of  plough-land  into  pasture,    IV.  5. 
by  the  destruction  of  a  great  number  of  cottages  and 

1596. 

holdings,  and  by  the  increase  of  sheep-walks  and  of  Junel2. 
parks  for  the  preservation  of  red  and  fallow  deer ;  that 
between  the  local  troops  and  the  Crown,  by  reports 
that  the  musters  have  been  forced  to  go  on  board  the 
fleet,  and  that  soldiers  raised  in  the  metropolitan  shires 
have  been  sent  by  the  Government  into  France. 

The  decay  of  tillage,  the  increase  of  sheep  and  deer, 
are  for  the  yeoman  class,  and  for  the  country  of  which 
they  are  the  thew  and  sinew,  dark  events.  The  yeomen 
kick  against  the  goad  ;  for,  not  being  skilled  in  science, 
they  cannot  see  that  they  are  driven  from  their  farms  by 
the  operations  of  a  natural  law.  If  they  have  ever  heard 
that,  as  wool  pays  better  than  rent,  their  landlords  prefer 
sheep  to  men,  the  news  has  not  reconciled  them  to  the 
conversion  of  their  old  farms  into  sheep-walks  or  deer- 
parks.  Smyth,  as  a  country  gentleman,  sees  this  sore, 
and  fancies  he  may  turn  the  discontent  against  the 
Queen. 

6.  Like  his  neighbors,  Smyth  hands  down  from  his 
walls  the  rusty  arms,  calling  in  Frost  of  Colchester  to 
edge  his  swords  and  string  his  bows.  Thomas  Seymour, 
one  of  those  weak  descendants  of  Mary  Brandon  whose 
blood  is  too  red  for  their  sovereign's  comfort,  or  their 
own,  joins  him  in  his  freak.  With  an  army  of  two 

6.  Examination  of  John  Lucas  and  others,  June  12, 1696,  S.  P.  0. ;  Examina- 
tion of  Frost,  June  22,  1596,  S.  P.  0. ;  Smyth  to  Mannocke,  June  13,  1596, 
S.  P.  0. 


88  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IV.  6.  mounted  followers,  Smyth  and  Seymour  ride  into  the 
field  at  Colchester  in  which  Sir  Thomas  Lucas,  fiercely 

ju!!u  loya1'  drills  nis  tro°P-  ReininS  their  steeds  in  front  of 
the  yeoman  line,  Sir  John  cries,  "  Who  will  go  with  me  ? 
There  are  traitors  round  the  Queen  who  grind  the  poor 
into  bondmen  ;  who  send  them  out  of  the  realm  ;  who 
break  the  laws ;  who  weaken  the  country,  who  ruin  the 
yeomen.  These  traitors  have  killed  nine  thousand  foot 
in  their  foreign  wars,  and  they  will  send  you  out  of  Eng- 
land to  be  slain." 

"  Shall  we  go  with  you,  Sir  John  ?  "  asks  a  trooper. 

"  You  shall  go  with  a  better  man  than  me,  —  than  Sir 
Thomas  Lucas,"  shouts  Smyth.  "  Here  is  a  noble  man 
of  the  blood  royal,  brother  to  Lord  Beauchamp  ;  he  shall 
be  your  captain.  I  myself  shall  be  his  assistant.  Down 
with  Burghley  !  Who  goes  with  me,  hold  up  his  hand." 

Not  one.  No  hand,  no  cry  is  raised.  Treason  that 
stops  is  lost ;  and  whoever  is  not  with  the  traitor  is 
against  him.  Meshed  in  a  fearful  crime,  the  four  horse- 
men prick  from  the  field,  part  in  the  slob,  and  hide  them- 
selves from  pursuit  in  the  sands  of  the  sea-shore.  Smyth 
seeks  a  boat  for  France  ;  but  the  summer  morning  dawns 
on  him  staggering,  faint  and  hopeless  on  the  coast ;  when, 
crazed  with  fear,  he  skulks  home  to  Baddow,  where  he 
vainly  hopes  to  hide  his  face  from  the  local  magistrates, 
now  hurrying  on  his  track. 

June  19.       7.   Sent  up  to  London,  lodged  in  the  Tower,  Smyth 

7.  Smyth  to  the  Council,  June  19, 1596,  S.  P.  0. ;  Council  to  Coke,  Fleming, 


NEWS   OF   A   GREAT   VICTORY.  89 

confesses  his  crime.     Coke  and  Fleming  receive  orders    IV.  7. 
from  the  Privy  Council  to  call  in  Bacon  and  Waad,  a 

•j  r  Q£ 

clerk  of  the  Council,  and  then  to  take  the  evidence,  look 

*  '  v  UI1C    It'. 

up  the  law,  and,  if  they  find  the  offence  treason,  prepare 
articles  of  indictment  against  Smyth.  These  four  com- 
missioners meet,  find  the  acts  at  Colchester  treason,  and 
report  that  the  offence  is  punishable  by  a  special  statute. 
Bacon,  not  content,  like  the  Attorney-General  and 
Solicitor-General,  with  setting  the  law  in  motion  to  hang 
this  wretched  man,  asks  himself  how  a  country  knight, 
not  wholly  crazed,  could  ever  have  dreamt  that,  on  a  cry 
of "  Down  with  sheep  and  deer,"  honest  men  could  be 
roused  to  mutiny  against  their  Queen.  To  a  philosophic 
mind  the  reason  of  a  thing  is  often  of  larger  interest 
than  the  thing  itself.  Is  there  discontent  among  the  yeo- 
men ?  If  so,  is  there  cause  ?  He  makes  a  wide  and 
sweeping  study  of  this  question  of  Pasturage  versus  Til- 
lage, of  Deer  versus  Men,  which  convinces  him  of  the 
cruelty  and  peril  of  depopulating  hamlets  for  the  benefit 
of  a  few  great  lords.  This  study  will  produce  when  Par- 
liament meets  again  a  memorable  debate  and  an  extraor- 
dinary change  of  law. 

8.  While  Coke  and  Bacon  wind  out  of  Smyth's  con-  juiyie. 
fessions  the  threads  of  his  interrupted  treason,  comes  in, 

Waad,  and  Bacon,  June  27,  1596,  S.  P.  0.;  Smyth's  Examination,  June  28, 
1596,  S.  P.  0. ;  Abstract  of  Evidence  against  Sir  John  Smyth,  July  1596,  S. 
P.  0. 

8.  Carey  to  Cecil,  July  16,  1596,  S.  P.  0. ;  Report  from  Cadiz,  July  16,  19, 
21,  1596,  S.  P.  0.;  Report  of  the  Spoil  taken  at  Cadiz,  Aug.  11,  1596,  S.  P.  0. 


90  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  8.  wave  on  wave,  the  news  of  such  a  victory  as  only  twice 
or  thrice  in  a  thousand  years  has  stirred  our  English 
16  phlegm.  It  comes  in  first  by  a  Dutch  skipper,  who  puts 
three  men  on  the  Devonshire  coast.  The  tale  they  tell 
is  beyond  belief:  the  city  of  Cadiz  taken,  an  armada 
sunk,  Porto  Santa  Maria  wrapt  in  flame,  the  Duke  of 
Medina  Creli  driven  from  his  lines,  the  road  from  San 
Lucar  to  Seville  blocked  up  with  the  fugitive  popula- 
tion of  a  great  province  hurrying  for  their  lives.  Some 
nine  days  pass  when  a  Scotch  boat  drops  into  Dartmouth 
with  the  same  news.  A  few  hours  later  still  the  van 
of  the  victorious  fleet  rides  into  Plymouth  Sound,  laden 
with  such  spoil,  such  heaps  of  plate,  gold,  jewels,  dam- 
asks, silks,  hangings,  carpets,  scarfs,  as  living  Englishmen 
have  only  seen  in  dreams.  To  hear  that  the  fleet  was 
safe  would  have  been  joy  enough  ;  this  fiery  triumph 
of  our  arms,  this  glow  of  spoil  and  conquest,  all  but 
drive  men  mad. 

sept.  9.  Most  mad  of  all  is  Essex.  The  glory  obtained  by 
Raleigh  and  Effingham  chafes  his  pride ;  the  elevation 
of  Cecil  in  his  absence  into  First  Secretary  of  State  dis- 
turbs his  power.  If  much  remains  to  him,  much  is 
not  enough.  A  warrior  who  has  pushed  through  the 
Puerta  de  la  Tierra,  and  seen  the  loveliest  city  in  the 
west  of  Europe  at  his  feet,  should  be  suffered,  he  thinks, 

9.  Lambeth  MSS.  658,  fol.  21;  Censures  of  the  Omissions  in  the  Expedition 
to  Cadiz,  1596;  Camden's  Ann.  Eliz.,  1696;  Bacon's  Apologie,  19,  20;  Deve- 
reux,  i.  380. 


CECIL'S  ELEVATION.  91 

to  enjoy  a  monopoly  of  power  and  fame.  Yet  a  sense-  IV.  9. 
less  country  shares  the  credit  with  his  rivals,  while  a  for- 
getful Queen  has  given  the  most  active  place  in  her  gov-  ^  t 
ernment  to  his  foe.  On  every  side  he  is  robbed  of  his 
due  ;  getting  neither  his  fair  part  of  the  spoil,  nor  any- 
thing like  his  fair  part  of  the  reputation.  So  he  sulks 
and  pouts ;  prints  his  own  account  of  the  voyage ; 
finds  fault  with  the  generals  and  admirals ;  tells  the 
sailors  of  the  fleet  and  the  soldiers  in  the  camp  that 
their  success  would  have  been  far  more  prompt,  their 
prizes  far  more  abundant,  had  his  command  of  them 
been  unfettered  by  such  a  council  of  fools  and  cowards. 

But  Cecil's  rise  at  home  provokes  him  more  than  Ea- 
leigh's  success  abroad.  This  case  is  a  repetition  of  Ba- 
con's case.  Sir  Thomas  Bodley,  that  experienced  scholar 
and  diplomatist  to  whose  wealth  and  taste  we  owe  the 
princely  library  at  Oxford,  has,  like  Bacon,  been  of  use 
to  the  Earl.  Essex,  who  pays  his  debts  in  offices  and 
grants,  has  pledged  his  word  that  Bodley  shall  be  Sec- 
retary of  State.  The  Queen  has  not  kept  her  kinsman's 
pledge.  On  his  return  from  Spain,  perceiving  that  he 
was  sent  away  from  London  to  give  Cecil  an  open  field, 
he  begins  to  sulk  and  storm.  He  will  not  stay  at  court 
to  be  mocked.  He  will  bury  his  grief  at  Wanstead,  or 
rush  away  to  the  war,  and  find  peace  of  heart  on  the 
Spanish  pikes! 

Lady  Ann's  quick  ear  and  loving  eye  perceive  the 
change  that  Cecil's  elevation,  the  Earl's  discomfiture, 
must  work  at  court.  Now  that  her  sister's  son,  who  so 


92  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  9.  bitterly  hates  the  Earl  and  so  sharply  resents  the  con- 
nection of  any  of  his  own  able  kin  with  the  insolent  and 
>96>  brainless  peer,  has  come  to  his  height  of  power,  she 
writes  to  warn  Anthony  of  the  evil  days  in  store  for 
them,  now  Cecil  is  greater  than  before,  and  of  the  need 
for  her  sons  to  walk  with  wary  step.  It  is  the  last  let- 
ter from  her  pen,  closing,  as  a  good  woman's  letters 
should  do,  with  words  of  love. 

LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

July  10, 1596. 

Now  that  Sir  Robert  is  fully  stalled  in  his  long  longed- 
for  secretary's  place,  I  pray  God  give  him  a  religious, 
wise,  and  an  upright  heart  before  God  and  man.  I 
promise  you,  son,  in  my  conjectural  opinion,  you  had 
more  need  now  to  be  more  circumspect  and  advised  in 
your  troublous  discoursiugs  and  doings  and  dealings  in 
your  accustomed  matter,  either  with  or  for  yourself  or 
others,  whom  you  heartily  honor,  nor  without  cause. 
He  now  hath  great  advantage  and  strength  to  intercept, 
prevent,  and  to  say  where  he  hath  been  or  is  in.  Son, 
be  it  revelation  or  suspicion,  you  know  what  terms  he 
standeth  in  towards  yourself,  and  would  needs  have  me 
tell  you  so ;  so  very  vehement  he  was.  Then  you  are 
said  to  be  wise,  and  to  my  comfort  I  willingly  think  so ; 
but  surely,  son,  on  the  other  side,  for  want  of  some 
experience  by  action  and  your  tedious  unacquaintance 
of  your  own  country  by  continual  chamber  and  bed- 


LETTER   FROM   LADY   BACON.  93 

keeping,  you  must  need  miss  of  considerate  judgment  in    IV.  9. 
your  verbal  only  travailing.      If  all  were   scant   sound 
before   betwixt  the   FiagX    [Earl  of  Essex]    and    him, 


friends  had  need  to  walk  more  warily  in  his'  days  ;  for 
all  affectionate  doing  he  may  hurt  though  pretending 
good.  The  father  and  son  are  joined  in  power  and 
policy.  The  Lord  ever  bless  you  in  Christ.  Still  I 
hearken  for  Yates  ;  I  doubt  somebody  hindereth  his  com- 
ing to  me.  It  were  small  matter  to  come  speak  with  me. 
You  know  what  you  have  to  do  in  regard  touching  the 
Spaniard.  I  reck  not  his  displeasure  ;  God  grant  he 
mar  not  all  at  last  with  Spanish  popish  subtlety.  Alas  ! 
what  I  wrote  touching  the  poor  sum  of  five  pounds  to 
your  brother  [Francis],  I  meant  but  to  let  you  know 
plainly.  I  would  rather  nourish  than  any  little  way 
weaken  true  brotherly  love,  as  appeareth  manifestly  to 
you  both.  God  forbid  but  that  you  should  always  love 
heartily,  mutually,  and  kindly.  God  commandeth  love 
as  brethren,  besides  bond  of  nature.  This  present  time 
I  am  brewing  but  for  hasty  and  home  drinking.  In 
truth,  if  I  should  purposely  make  a  tierce  somewhat 
strong  for  you,  I  know  not  how  to  have  carried  it 
through.  It  were  pity  that  you  and  I  both  should  be 
disappointed.  Burn,  burn,  in  any  wise. 

From  your  mother, 
A.  B. 

Bacon  warns    the    Earl    against  hasty   speeches    and 
offensive  acts.     Essex  swears  the  rough  way  is  the  only 


94  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  9.  way  with  Elizabeth.  She  may  be  driven,  not  led.  "  My 
Lord,"  says  Bacon,  "  these  courses  are  like  hot  waters ; 
*96'  they  may  help  at  a  pang,  but  they  will  not  do  for 
daily  use."  Essex  seems  crazed.  Bacon  seeks  to  dis- 
suade him  from  this  lust  of  arms ;  his  proper  weapon 
being  a  chamberlain's  stick.  In  happy  phrase  he  tells 
him  that  this  haughty  bearing  to  the  Queen,  this  craving 
for  command  in  camps,  may  prove  to  him  the  two  wings 
of  Icarus,  —  wings  joined  on  with  wax  ;  wings  which 
may  melt  as  he  soars  to  the  sun. 

1597.  10.  Essex  cools  to  a  man  whose  talk  is  so  very  much 
ane'  wiser  than  he  wants  to  hear.  They  have  no  scene, 
no  quarrel,  no  parting;  for  there  are  no  sympathies  to 
wrench,  no  friendships  to  dissolve.  Essex  ceases  to  seek 
advice  at  Gray's  Inn.  They  now  rarely  see  each  other. 
Bacon  is  writing  his  Essays,  fagging  at  the  bar,  slipping 
into  love ;  and  Essex  is  still  happy  to  serve  him,  when 
he  can  do  it  at  anybody's  cost  but  his  own. 

Francis  falls  into  love.  Lord  Campbell  thinks  he 
only  falls  into  debt.  "  He  was  desperately  poor ;  he 
therefore  made  a  bold  attempt  to  restore  his  position  by 
matrimony."  This  is  surely  in  Bantam's  vein.  "  When 
one  does  n't  know,"  asks  the  cockfighter,  "  is  not  it  nat- 
ural to  think  the  worst  ?  "  The  lady  that  Bacon  courts 
is  rich  and  of  his  kin.  Elizabeth  Hatton,  a  granddaugh- 
ter of  his  uncle  Burghley,  niece  of  his  cousin  Cecil,  has 

10.  Essex  to  Sir  Thomas  Cecil,  June  24, 1597;  Bankes's  Story  of  Corffe  Cas- 
tle, 34. 


PROPOSES   TO  ELIZABETH   HATTON.  95 

been  left  a  widow,  young,  lovely,  powerful  in  her  friends  IV.  10. 
and  in  her  fine  estate.     The  mistress  of  Hatton  House, 
of  Corffe  Castle,  of  Purbeck  Isle,  a  woman  whose  lovely 

*         June. 

hand  is  celebrated  in  Jonson's  verse,  — 

"  Mistress  of  a  finer  table 
Hath  not  history  or  fable,"  — 

has,  of  course,  crowds  of  adorers  at  her  feet :  among 
them  men  no  less  renowned  than  William  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke and  Francis  Bacon.  The  lady,  or  her  kinsman 
for  her,  puts  aside  their  suits.  Cecil  looks  on  his  fair 
niece  as  a  thing  to  be  sold  for  his  own  gain.  Her  youth, 
her  beauty,  her  great  inheritance  are  precious  in  his 
sight,  and  the  husband  for  such  a  woman  must  be  to 
him  a  strong  defender  or  a  useful  slave. 

Essex,  on  the  point  of  sailing  for  the  Azores,  writes 
to  Sir  Thomas  and  Lady  Cecil,  saying,  if  he  had  a  sis- 
ter to  give  away  in  marriage,  he  •  would  gladly  give  her 
to  his  friend  If  this  means  more  than  the  cheap  gen- 
erosity of  words,  it  is  most  fortunate  for  Francis  that 
Penelope  and  Dorothy,  the  Earl's  two  sisters,  are  already 
in  holy  bonds.  It  would  have  been  bad  enough  for  him 
to  have  won  Lady  Hatton  ;  it  would  have  been  awful  to 
have  stood  in  the  shoes  of  Northumberland  or  Rich. 

11.  During  the  Earl's  absence  at  the  Azores  Effing-    Oct.  22. 
ham  is  made  an  earl :  an  affront  to  Essex  more  galling 

11.  Patent  of  the  Earldom  of  Nottingham,  Oct.  22, 1597,  S.  P.  0.;  Elizabeth 
to  Essex,  Oct.  28,  1597,  S.  P.  0.;  Raleigh  to  Cecil,  July  20,  1597,  S.  P.  0.;  Ce- 
cil to  Essex,  July  26,  1597,  S.  P.  0.;  Devereux,  i.  467. 


96  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  11.  than  the  rejection,  on  his  suit,  of  the  services  of  Bacon 
and  Bodley ;  for  this  creation  robs  him,  as  he  thinks, 
J  22  of  the  glory  of  Cadiz  fight,  and  permits  a  man  whom 
he  loathes  to  walk  before  him  in  the  Queen's  train  and 
sit  above  him  in  the  House  of  Peers.  When  he  hears 
of  this  grant  having  passed  the  Seal,  he  quits  his  com- 
mand without  leave,  hurries  up  to  town,  and  finding 
the  thing  done,  insults  the  Queen,  spurs  to  Wanstead 
House,  defying  at  once  the  entreaties  of  the  Council 
to  return,  and  the  advice  of  his  best  friends  to  submit. 
A  dark  and  ruinous  spirit  now  stands  by  his  side. 
Raleigh  screens  him  from  blame  in  his  great  failure  at 
the  Azores ;  pleading  for  him  with  the  Queen  in  almost 
passionate  terms  ;  but  Raleigh  is  the  lion  in  the  way 
of  Blount,  his  new  and  most  confidential  friend.  Un- 
der the  lead  of  Sir  Christopher  Blount,  Essex  parts 
from  his  old  Protestant  and  patriotic  allies,  from  Ba- 
con and  Raleigh,  from  Cecil  and  Grey,  turning  his  eyes 
and  ears  to  the  blandishments  of  loose  women  and  the 
suggestions  of  discontented  men ;  to  such  wantons  as 
Elizabeth  Southwell,  and  Mary  Howard,  to  such  plot- 
ters as  Robert  Catesby  and  Christopher  Wright.  A  craze 
is  in  his  blood  and  in  his  brain.  "  It  comes  from  his 
mother,"  sighs  the  hurt  and  angry  Queen. 

12.  As  Lettice  Knollys,  as  Countess  of  Essex,  as  Count- 
ess of  Leicester,  as  wife  of  Sir  Christopher  Blount,  this 

12.  Papers  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  xvi.  7, 15,  16,  17 ;  Camden's  Ann.  Eliz.. 
632;  Craik's  Romance  of  the  Peerage,  i.  5,  338. 


THE   COUNTESS   OF   LEICESTER.  97 


mother  of  the  Earl  has  been  a  barb  in  Elizabeth's  side  for  IV.  12. 
thirty  years.     Married  as  a  girl  to  a  noble  husband,  she 

Oct. 


1597 

gave  up  his  honor  to  a  seducer,  and  there  is  reason  to 


fear  she  gave  her  consent  to  the  taking  of  his  life. 
While  Devereux  lived  she  deceived  the  Queen  by  a  scan- 
dalous amour,  and  after  his  death  by  a  clandestine  mar- 
riage with  the  Earl  of  Leicester.  While  Dudley  lived 
she  wallowed  in  licentious  love  with  Christopher  Blount, 
his  groom  of  the  horse.  When  her  second  husband 
expired  in  agonies  at  Cornbury,  not  a  gallop  from  the 
place  in  which  Amy  Robsart  died,  she  again  mortified 
the  Queen  by  a  secret  union  with  her  seducer,  Blount. 

Her  children  riot  in  the  same  vices.  Essex  himself, 
with  his  ring  of  favorites,  is  not  more  profligate  than  his 
sister  Lady  Rich.  In  early  youth  Penelope  Rich  was  the 
mistress  of  Sydney,  whose  stolen  love  for  her  is  pictured 
in  his  most  voluptuous  verse.  Sydney  is  Astrophel, 
Penelope  Stella.  Since  Sydney's  death  she  has  lived  in 
shameless  adultery  with  Lord  Montjoy,  though  her  hus- 
band Lord  Rich  is  still  alive.  Her  sister  Dorothy,  after 
wedding  one  husband  secretly  and  against  the  canon,  has 
now  married  Percy,  the  wizard  Earl  of  Northumberland, 
whom  she  leads  the  life  of  a  dog. 

Save  in  the  Suffolk  branch  of  the  Howards,  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  find  out  of  Italian  story  a  group  of  women 
so  detestable  as  the  mother  and  sisters  of  the  Earl. 

13.  The  third  husband  of  Lady  Leicester  is  her  match 

13.  Craik's  Rom.  Peerage,  i.  127,  208. 
5  G 


98  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IV.  13.  in  licentiousness,  more  than  her  match  in  crime".  By 
birth  a  papist,  by  profession  a  bravo  and  a  spy,  Blount  is 
Qct  incapable  .either  of  feeling  for  his  wretched  wife  the 
manly  love  of  Essex,  or  of  treating  her  with  the  lordly 
courtesy  of  Leicester.  Brutal  and  rapacious,  he  has  mar- 
ried her,  not  for  her  bright  eyes,  now  dim  with  rheum 
and  vice,  but  for  her  jewels,  her  connections,  and  her 
lands.  He  cringed  to  Leicester,  that  he  might  sell  the 
secrets  of  his  cabinet  and  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  his  bed. 
With  the  same  blank  conscience,  he  wrings  from  the 
widow  her  ornaments  and  goods.  Chain,  armlet,  neck- 
lace, money,  land,  timber,  everything  that  is  hers,  wastes 
from  his  prodigal  palm.  He  beats  her  servants  ;  he 
thrusts  his  kinsfolk  upon  her ;  he  snatches  the  pearl  from 
her  neck,  the  bond  from  her  strong  box.  A  villain  so 
black  would  have  driven  a  novelist  or  playwright  mad. 
lago,  Overreach,  Barabas,  all  the  vile  creatures  of  poetic 
imagination,  are  to  him  angels  of  light.  What  would  have 
been  any  other  man's  worst  vice  is  Blount's  sole  virtue, 
—  a  ruthless  and  unreasoning  constancy  to  his  creed. 
Fear  and  shame  are  to  him  the  idlest  of  idle  words  ;  and, 
just  as  he  would  follow  the  commands  of  his  general,  he 
obeys  the  dictation  of  his  priest.  As  a  libertine  and  as  a 
spy,  his  days  have  been  spent  in  dodging  the  assassin  or 
in  cheating  the  rope.  Waite  was  sent  by  Leicester  to  kill 
the  villain  who  had  denied  his  bed  ;  Blount  repaid  the 
courtesy  by  prompting  or  conniving  at  Leicester's  death. 
Taught  by  Cardinal  Allen,  deep  in  the  Jesuit  plots,  he 
has  more  than  once  put  his  neck  so  near  the  block,  that 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER-  BLOUNT.  99 

a  world  which  neither  loves  nor  understands  him  hugs  IV.  13. 
itself  in  a  belief  that  he  must  have  bought  his  safety 
from  arrest  and  condemnation  by  selling  to  Walsingham 
or  Cecil  the  blood  of  better  and  braver  men. 

14.  This  bravo  has  subdued  the  imperious  Countess  of 
Leicester  to  his  will.  She  has  been  to  him  an  easy,  if  not 
an  ignoble  prey  ;  for  the  profligate  woman  dotes  on  her 
tyrant ;  so  that  she  who  could  barely  stoop  to  the  kiss  of 
Devereux  and  Dudley,  prides  herself  on  the  blessing  of 
being  robbed  and  cuffed  by  a  wretch  without  grace,  accom- 
plishments, or  parts.  When,  for  his  private  gain  and  the 
promotion  of  his  faith,  it  serves  Blount's  turn  to  win  over 
Essex  the  same  brutal  ascendency  which  he  has  estab- 
lished over  Lady  Leicester,  he  feels  no  pang  of  heart 
in  turning  her  tenderness  as  a  mother  into  the  abomina- 
ble instrument  of  his  guile.  His  bold,  coarse  arts  are 
soon  successful  with  the  giddy  youth ;  who  draws  closer 
and  closer  to  his  mother's  husband,  puts  him  into  places 
of  trust  near  his  person,  listens  to  his  counsels,  makes 
associates  of  his  male  and  female  friends,  gets  him  a  com- 
mand in  the  army,  and  gives  him  a  seat  in  the  House  of 
Commons. 

Bacon  and  Blount  propose  to  Essex  the  two  courses 
most  opposed  to  each  other :  Bacon  the  abandonment  of 

14.  Devereux,  i.  281;  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  16,  1600.  The  frequent  recurrence 
of  the  Privy  Council  Register  in  these  notes  reminds  me  that  I  ought  to  express, 
and  in  the  warmest  manner,  my  many  obligations  to  Henry  Reeve,  Esq.,  of  the 
Privy  Council  Office.  I  owe  to  his  ready  and  unvarying  kindness  an  easy  ac- 
cess to  the  sources  of  some  of  the  most  important  facts  in  this  volume. 


100  FRANCIS   BACON. 

JV.  14.  his  military  pomp,  of  his  opposition  to  the  Queen,  and  tht 
acceptance  now  and  forever  of  that  great  part  which  Lei- 
cester had  filled  for  so  many  years  ;  Blount  the  pursuit  of 

Oct* 

war  and  glory,  so  as  to  dazzle  the  multitude,  overawe  the 
Queen,  find  employments  for  his  companions,  and  con- 
solidate his  personal  power.  Bacon  would  make  him 
chief  of  the  Protestant  nation,  Blount  of  a  discontented 
and  disloyal  Roman  Catholic  sect.  One  asks  him  to  be 
grave,  discreet,  and  self-denying.  The  other  fires  his 
blood  with  maddening  and  dramatic  hopes.  He  cleaves 
to  Blount,  who  tempts  him  with  the  things  for  which  his 
restless  and  evil  nature  pants.  He  begins  to  toy  with 
treason.  He  admits  Roman  Catholics  of  sullied  reputa- 
tion and  suspected  loyalty  into  his  confidence.  He  even 
interferes  to  protect  from  justice  the  traitor  Sir  John 
Smyth. 

oct  24.  15.  At  the  end  of  those  four  years  for  which  Bacon 
has  compelled  the  Government  to  accept  of  subsidies,  the 
money  being  spent,  writs  for  a  new  parliament  go  out. 
Bacon  now  stands  for  Ipswich,  the  family  county  town 
and  the  aim  of  his  warmest  ambition  ;  having  for  his 
colleague  in  the  representation  Michael  Stanhope,  a 
grand-nephew  of  Lady  Ann.  His  kinsmen  muster  strong 
in  Westminster.  Anthony  sits  for  Oxford,  Nathaniel  for 
Lynn  ;  Henry  Neville,  his  sister's  son,  for  Liskeard  ;  Sir 
Edward  Hoby,  his  cousin,  for  Rochester  ;  Sir  Robert 

15.  Mem.  of  Stages  of  Bills  in  Parliament,  Oct.  1597,  S.  P.  0. ;  Willis,  Not. 
Parl.,  iii.  187, 139,  140,  141, 142;  D'Ewes,  549;  Townshend,  102. 


MOTION  ON  THE   STATE   OF  THE   COUNTRY.  101 

Cecil,  also   his  cousin,  for  Herts.     Benedict  Barnham,  of   IV.  15. 
Cheapside,  whose  pretty  little  daughter,  Alice,  Bacon  will 

1597. 
years  hence  make  his  wife,  is  returned  for  Yarmouth,      Oct- 

having  represented  Minehead  in  the  former  Parliament. 
Raleigh  sits  for  Dorsetshire  ;  and  Christopher  Yelverton, 
the  Speaker  nominate,  for  Northants.  Sir  Christopher 
Blount,  by  command  from  the  Earl  of  Essex,  serves  for 
Staffordshire.  In  this  new  session  the  member  for  Ips- 
wich sits,  not,  as  Lord  Campbell  writes,  a  burgess  pros- 
trate, penitent,  under  the  royal  ban,  anxious  by  his 
silence  and  servility  to  efface  the  recollection  of  his  for- 
mer speech.  No  voice  is  raised  so  often  or  so  loud  as 
his.  Again  he  speaks  for  ample  grants  ;  again  he  votes 
with  the  reforming  squires  ;  again  he  wages  battle  of 
privilege  against  the  Privy  Council  and  the  House  of 
Lords.  He  serves  on  the  Committee  of  Monopolies.  He 
seconds  Sir  Francis  Hastings's  motion  for  amending  the 
penal  laws.  But  the  great  contest  of  this  session,  the  one 
that  makes  it  memorable  in  English  history,  is  fought  on 
a  bill  of  his  own,  framed  on  the  treason  of  Sir  John 
Smyth,  and  meant  to  arrest  the  decay  of  tillage,  the 
perishing  of  the  yeomen  population  from  the  English 
soil. 

16.  Yelverton   chosen    Speaker,   Bacon    rises   with   a     NOT. 
motion    on    the    State   of  the    Country.      State   of  the 


16.  Summary  Articles  of  the  Bill  for  Maintenance  of  Husbandry,  Oct.  1597, 
S.  P.  0. ;  D'Ewes  550  -  53 ;  Bacon's  History  of  the  Reign  of  Henry  VH.,  Works, 
vi.  94. 


102  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  16.  Country  means  to  him  the   relation  of  the   people  to 

the  land.     The  population  lives  on  the  soil.     Mining  is 

597'    in  its  cradle,  though  the  iron  ordnance  of  Sussex  and 

NOT. 

Arden  has  been  heard  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Theiss ; 
manufactures  are  few  and  scant,  though  the  dyed  wools 
of  Tiverton  and  Dunster  have  begun  t6  find  markets 
on  the  Elbe  and  the  Scheldt.  To  grow  corn,  to  -herd 
cattle,  to  brew  ale  and  press  cider,  to  shear  sheep,  to 
fell  and  carry  wood,  are  the  main  occupations  of  every 
English  shire.  The  farms  are  small  and  many ;  the 
farmers  neither  rich  nor  poor.  The  breeder  of  kine, 
the  grower  of  herbs  and  wheat,  is  a  yeoman  born  ;  not 
too  proud  to  put  hand  to  plough,  not  too  pinched  to 
keep  horse  and  pike.  A  link  between  the  noble  and 
the  peasant,  he  is  of  the  very  thew  and  marrow  of  the 
state  ;  a  man  to  stand  at  your  shoulder  in  the  day  of 
work  or  in  the  day  of  fight.  This  sturdy  class  is 
dropping  the  plough  for  the  weaver's  shuttle  and  the 
tailor's  goose ;  the  rage  for  enclosing  woods  and  com- 
mons, for  impaling  parks,  for  changing  arable  land  into 
pasture,  for  turning  holdings  for  life  into  tenancies  at 
will,  having  driven  thousands  of  yeomen  from  fields 
and  downs  which  their  fathers  tilled  before  the  Cen- 
queror  came  in.  Whole  districts  have  been  cleared. 
Where  homesteads  smoked  and  harvests  once  waved, 
there  is  now,  in  many  parts,  a  broad  green  landscape, 
peopled  by  a  shepherd  and  his  dog.  Where  the  may- 
pole sprung,  and  the  village  green  crowed  with  frolic, 
are  now  a  sheep-walk  or  a  park  of  deer. 


INCREASE   OF   PASTURE.  103 

17.  The  loss  of  this  martial  race,  the  bowmen  of  IV.  17. 
Cressy,  the  billmen  of  Boulogne,  is  a  grievous  weak- 
ness for  the  Crown ;  thinning  the  musters  for  defence,  Nov> 
swelling  the  materials  for  mutinies  and  plots.  Nor  has 
this  change  escaped  the  Jesuits,  or  those  who  live  to 
watch  and  thwart  the  Jesuits.  A  paper  of  instructions 
for  the  Roman  Catholic  priests  and  gentry,  On  the 
means  of  recovering  England  to  the  Holy  See,  lays  stress 
on  the  discontent  caused  by  these  enclosures  of  com- 
mons and  village  greens.  Smyth  used  this  argument 
at  Colchester.  The  Catholic  peers  have  not  been  slow 
to  increase  an  evil  which  their  party  treats  as  a  means 
of  future  good  to  the  Church.  Dr.  James,  the  Dean 
of  Durham,  has  had  to  warn  Burghley  of  the  conse- 
quences of  this  waste  of  tillage  and  population  in  the 
two  shires  of  Durham  and  Northumberland  ;  shires  in 
which  two  or  three  Roman  Catholic  earls  own  nearly 
all  the  soil.  The  yeomen  have  embraced  the  national 
faith,  while  most  of  the  old  nobility  cling  to  the  for- 
eign creed  ;  and  a  fanatic  like  Percy  or  Seymour  may 
often  find  a  legal  form  of  persecution  in  the  pretence 
of  converting  his  arable  land  into  pasture,  or  of  form- 
ing a  new  park.  But  if  this  rage  for  enclosure  is 
sometimes  abused  into  a  means  of  sectarian  spite,  it  is 
very  far  from  being  confined  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
lords.  From  Durham  to  Devon  the  tenants  are  chased 

17.  Discourse  of  the  Providence  necessary  to  be  had  for  the  setting  up  of  the 
Catholic  Faith  when  God  shall  call  the  Queen  out  of  this  life,  Aug.  1600,  S.  P. 
0. ;  Dr.  James  to  Burghley,  May  26,  1597,  S.  P.  0. ;  Stillman  to  Cecil,  Jan  2, 
1600,  S.  P.  0. 


104  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  17.  from  their  farms  that  sheep  may  feed  and  deer  disport. 
—  Ire  fills  and  inflames  the  yeomen's  veins.  In  every 
Park  wa^  *key  see  a  menace,  in  every  doe  the  sub- 
stitute of  a  man.  They  throw  down  the  pales  and 
ensnare  the  deer.  A  youth  of  Stratford-upon-Avon  kills 
his  buck  in  Charlcote  Park.  A  crowd  from  Enfield 
scours  the  preserves  of  Hatfield  Chace.  Every  spark 
becomes  his  own  Robin  Hood,  and  cheap  haunches  of 
venison  smoke  on  the  tables  of  Cheapside  and  Pater- 
noster Row.  To  snare  deer  is,  in  all  the  popular  com- 
edies and  songs,  an  heroic  protest,  not  at  ail  a  crime. 

18.  Unlike  the  Jesuits  and  the  Jesuitized  peers,  whose 
purpose  it  may  be  to  thin  the  fibre  and  relax  the  power 
of  England  in  the  field,  Bacon  seeks  to  arrest  this  evil 
in  its  germ.  Placed  by  his  birth  between  the  nobles 
and  the  commons,  he  shares  neither  the  pride  of  the 
superior  nor  the  envy  of  the  inferior  rank.  His  genius, 
too,  is  singularly  free  from  taint  of  sect  or  class.  He 
is  wholly  English.  His  glory  is  to  reconcile  classes 
through  reform,  to  strengthen  the  Crown  by  justice. 
Concord,  tolerance,  loyalty  at  home  ;  sway,  extension, 
trade  abroad,  —  these  are  the  points  at  which  he  aims. 
Not  so  the  Jesuits.  They  have  begun  to  despair  of  aid 
from  Spain ;  after  the  wreck  of  the  Armada,  the  sack  of 
Cadiz,  they  fear  lest  England  may  be  found  too  strong 
for  subjection  to  Rome  by  either  foreign  guile  or  for- 

18.  Discourse  of  Providence  necessary  to  be  had  for  the  setting  up  of  thf 
Catholic  Faith,  Aug.  1600,  S.  P.  0. 


BILL  FOR  MAINTENANCE   OF  HUSBANDRY.  105 

eign  steel.     They  turn  their  eyes,  therefore,  to  the  men  IV.  18. 
with  sore  hearts  and  brawny  arms,  and,  taking  note  of 
the  discontent  among  the  yeomen,  begin  to  count  with     Noy  ' 
confidence  on  the  approaching  days  of  civil  war. 

19.  Bacon's  plan  for  staying  the  decline  of  population 
is  to  convert  this  new  grass-land  into  arable,  to  put  these 
new  parks  under  the  plough.     A  commttee  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  named  to  consider  this   plan,  votes  in  its 
favor,  when  the  House  commissions  its  author  to  frame 
and  introduce  his  bill.      He  brings   in   two   bills  :    one 
for  the   Increase   of  Tillage   and   Husbandry ;   one  for 
the  Increase  of  People.     These   bills   provide  that  the 
more  land  shall  be  cleared  without  special  reason  and 
a  special  license.     They  provide   that  all  land   turned 
into  pasture  since  the  Queen's  accession,  no  less  a  pe- 
riod than  forty  years,  shall  be  taken  from  the  deer  and 
sheep  within  eighteen  months,  and  restored  to  the  yeo- 
mau  and  the  plough. 

20.  If  the  Commons  pass  these  bills  at  once,  the  Peers 
receive   them  with  amazement.     Ask  the   Shrewsburys, 
Worcesters,  and  Northumberlands  to  dispark  their  chases 
and   restore   the   plough !     As  well   ask  Began  for  the 
hundred  knights.     At  once  they  name  a  committee  of 
Peers   to  oppose  the  two   bills ;   which  committee  calls 

19.  Summary  Articles  of  the  Bill  for  Maintenance  of  Husbandry,  Oct.  1597, 
S.  P.  0. ;  Breviate  of  a  Bill  entitled  "  An  Act  for  the  Increase  of  People  for  the 
Service  and  Defence  of  the  Realm,"  Dec.  20,  1597,  S.  P.  0. 

20.  Lords'  Jour.,  ii.  212,  217. 

5* 


106  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  20.  to  its  aid  the  legal  dexterity  of  Chief  Justice  Popham 
and  Attorney-General  Coke. 

1597. 

Dec.  21.  Though  the  foreign  enemy  is  at  the  gate  and 
every  true  man  at  his  post,  Vere  in  the  Low  Countries, 
Raleigh  and  Montjoy  at  Plymouth,  Essex  still  sulks  and 
pouts  at  Wanstead.  In  vain  the  Lord-Treasurer  coaxes. 
In  vain  the  Earl's  friends  remonstrate  with  him  on  the 
wickedness  of  dividing  or  distracting  his  country  at  such 
a  time.  In  vain  they  beg  him  to  put  aside  his  wrongs, 
if  he  has  any  wrongs,  until  the  danger  of  a  fresh  inva- 
sion from  Spain,  of  a  fresh  massacre  in  Ireland,  shall 
have  passed  away.  The  Queen  declares  herself  hurt 
more  by  this  desertion  than  by  his  failures  when  at  sea. 
But  nothing  moves  him  until  Bacon's  patriotic  bills  come 
up  before  the  Peers,  when  he  hastens  to  town,  and, 
receiving  the  nomination  of  Earl  Marshal,  takes  his  seat 
in  the  House  of  Lords.  As  he  had  not  been  named  to 
the  hostile  committee,  he  begs  that  his  name  may  be 
added  to  the  list. 

For  this  committee  Coke  draws  up  thirty-one  legal 
objections  to  Bacon's  bills.  Thus  armed  to  contest  his 
logic  and  deny  his  law,  the  Peers  send  Black  Rod  down 
to  request  a  conference  with  the  Lower  House. 

22.  Aware  of  these  hostile  preparations  in  the  other 

21.  Burghley  to  Essex,  Nov.  9^  19,  30,  1597,  S.  P.  0. ;  Remonstrance  with 
Essex,  Nov.  16,  1597,  S.  P.  0.;  Howard,  Montjoy,  and  Raleigh  to  the  Council, 
Nov.  9, 1597,  S  P.  0.;  Hunsdon  to  Essex,  Nov.  1597,  S.  P.  0. 

22.  Lords'  Jour.,  ii.  217;  Statutes  39  Elizabeths;,  c.  1  and  2. 


FURTHER  GRANT  FROM  THE  QUEEN.        107 

House,  the  Commons,  ere  entering  into  conference,  wish  IV.  22. 
to  have  a  copy  of  Coke's  thirty-one  legal  objections  to 
their  bills.     The  Lords  refuse  to  give   it.      But  Bacon     Jan  ' 
will  not  bend  ;  if  the  Commons  are  to  meet  objections, 
they  must  know  what  these  objections  are.     No  copy,  no 
conference  !     After  much  debate  the  Peers  consent  to 
give  their  written  answer  to  the  bills  when  the  gentle- 
men of  the  Commons  shall  come  up  to  confer. 

Conference  now  meets,  the  burgesses  employing  Bacon 
as  their  champion,  the  barons  employing  Coke.  After 
day  on  day  of  talk,  after  many  proposals  and  somo 
amendments,  Coke  gives  way,  and  the  worsted  Peers 
accept  the  two  bills  with  some  slight  modifications  of  Feb. 
title  and  clause. 

The  bills  did  not  pass,  says  Lord  Campbell. 

They  are  in  the   Statute  Book,   39   of  Elizabeth,   1 
and  2. 

23.  No  love  for  enclosures  which  thin  her  hamlets  of  Feb.  27. 
their  strength  prevents  the  Queen  from  receiving  most 
graciously  and  rewarding  most  nobly  this  momentous 
service  to  her  crown.  Bacon  knows  her  well.  A  law 
case  having  been  referred  to  some  of  the  judges  and 
counsel,  she  inquires  his  mind  on  the  course  she  is  pur- 
suing. "  Madam,"  says  he,  "  my  mind  is  known ;  I  am 
against  all  enclosures,  and  especially  against  enclosed 
justice."  Only  two  weeks  after  signing  her  name  to  his 
bill  for  replacing  the  yeoman  on  the  soil  from  which 

23.  Kesuscitatio,  -10;  Patent  Rolls,  40  Elizabeth*,  Pars  iii.  26. 


108  FBANCIS  BACON. 

IV.  23.  he  has  been  driven,  she  sets  her  hand  to  the  grant  of  a 
third  estate.  This  act  of  her  princely  grace  confers  on 

1 ">'  H 

Feb  ^  Bacon  the  rectory  and  church  at  Cheltenham,  together 
with  the  chapel  at  Charlton  Kings,  in  the  lovely  valley 
nestling  under  Cleve  and  Leckhainpton  hills  ;  a  valley 
not  yet  famed  for  those  mineral  springs,  those  shady 
walks,  those  pretty  spas  and  gardens,  which  in  the  days 
of  Victoria  have  transformed  Lansdowne  and  Pittville 
into  suburbs  of  delight  ;  yet  rich  in  the  voluptuous 
charms  of  nature,  blessed  with  a  prodigal  fertility  of 
corn  and  fruit,  of  kine  and  sheep.  The  rectory,  the 
chapelry,  are  noble  gifts.  With  them  are  granted  all 
the  land,  houses,  meadows,  pastures,  gardens,  rents, —  all 
services,  —  all  views  of  frankpledge,  courts  leet,  fines, 
heriots,  mortuaries,  and  reliefs,  —  all  tithes  of  fruit  and 
grain,  —  all  profits,  all  royalties,  —  save  only  the  usual 
crown  rights  reserved  on  crown  lands,  with  a  fee  to  the 
Archdeacon  of  Gloucester,  and  an  obligation  to  support 
two  priests  and  two  deacons,  —  on  the  payment  of  a 
nominal  rent  of  seventy-five  pounds  a  year. 


THE   IRISH   PLOT.  109 


CHAPTER    Y. 

THE     IRISH     PLOT. 

1.  UNDER  the  eyes  of  Blount,  Essex  parts  more  and    V.  1. 
more  from  the  good  cause  and  from  those  who  love  it. 
His   horses   are   not  now   seen   in   Gray's  Inn  Square. 

•  Sept. 

The  correspondence  with  Anthony  Bacon  drops.  The 
barges  which  float  to  Essex  stairs  bring  other  company 
than  the  Veres  and  Raleighs,  the  Cecils,  Nottinghams, 
and  Greys.  To  sup  with  bold,  bad  men  ;  to  listen  when 
he  ought  to  strike ;  to  waste  his  manhood  on  the  frail 
Southwells  and  Howards,  have  become  the  feverish 
habits  of  his  life.  Sir  Charles  Danvers,  Sir  Charles  and 
Sir  Jocelyn  Percy,  Sir  William  Constable,  Captain  John 
Lee,  —  all  discontented  and  disloyal  Roman  Catholics, 
—  are  now  his  household  and  familiar  friends.  The 
young  apostate  Lord  Monteagle  sits  at  his  board ;  though 
merely,  as  is  guessed  from  what  comes  after,  in  the 
shameful  character  of  Cecil's  tool  and  spy.  But  in  the 
rear  of  Danvers  and  Percy,  Constable  and  Lee,  wicked 
and  dangerous  as  these  men  are,  lurks  a  crowd  of  ruf- 


1.  Lodge's  Illustrations,  ii.  545;  Devereux,*i.  475;  Birch's  Memoirs  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  ii.  70;  Vaughan  to  Cecil,  Jan.  29, 1598,  S.  P.  0.;  Vaughan  to  Hes- 
keth,  Jan.  29,  1598,  S.  P.  0. ;  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  16,  1600. 


HO  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  1.    fians   at  whose   side   they   seem  respectable.     Tresham 
is   seen  at  Essex  House.      Catesby  sits   at  the   Earl's 

sf!     table-     A11  the  slums  and  Jails  of  Loudon  stir  with  a 
new  life.     As  a  Privy  Cduncillor,  Essex  can  send  into 

the  prisons  and  fetch  their  inmates  to  his  private  house. 
Light  breaks  into  the  cells  of  Bridewell  and  the  Fleet. 
Sir  John  Smyth  is  liberated  on  bond,  Essex  himself 
coming  forward  as  the  traitor's  friend  and  surety. 
Father  Thomas  Wright,  a  Jesuit  agent,  deep  in  the  se- 
crets, high  in  the  confidence,  of  the  Courts  of  Rome  and 
Madrid,  who  has  been  for  many  months  in  trouble,  at  first 
confined  in  Dean  Goodman's  house,  but  of  late  trans- 
ferred to  a  common  jail,  steals  after  dusk  from  the  Bride- 
well to  Essex  House  for  secret  interviews  with  the  Earl 
and  Blount.  Nor  is  the  bustle  limited  to  the  London  tav- 
erns and  the  London  jails.  The  cloughs  of  Lancashire, 
the  ridges  and  heaths  of  Wales,  send  up  to  London  the 
most  restless  of  their  recusants  and  priests.  Vaughan, 
the  Bishop  of  Chester,  notes  a  mysterious  change  in 
that  Papist  district,  and  warns  the  head  of  the  Govern- 
ment that  he  must  look  for  sudden  storms.  The  recu- 
sants of  his  diocese,  he  says,  refuse  to  pay  their  usual 
fines,  defy  the  clergy  and  magistrates,  and  talk  of  the 
support  which  they  expect  from  new  and  powerful 
friends.  When  pressed  too  hard,  instead  of  bowing  to 
the  laws  as  they  have  been  wont  to  do,  they  jump  to 
horse  and  spur  away. 

2.  The  gang  of  Papist  conspirators  who   now  begin 


THE   IRISH  PLOT.  Ill 

to  gather  into  force  round  the  Earl  of  Essex,  propose  V.  2. 
to  .themselves  not  only  to  escape  from  fine  and  impris- 
onment, but  to  dethrone  the  Queen,  to  restore  the  Sept/ 
faggot  to  Smithfield  and  the  mass  to  St.  Paul's.  They 
hope  to  effect  this  change  by  a  military  surprise  and 
a  secret  understanding  with  the  Pope.  Essex  tells  the 
Jesuit  Father  Wright,  in  their  midnight  meetings,  that 
he  could  become  a  Roman  Catholic,  were  it  not  that 
the  Roman  Catholics  have  always  been  against  him. 
Wright  assures  him  that  the  Roman  Catholics  will 
now  be  his  best  friends.  The  plotters  lay  down  their 
plans.  To  surprise  the  Queen  they  must  have  the  com- 
mand of  an  armed  force  ;  Raleigh  must  be  killed ;  a 
military  faction  formed,  an  army  raised,  and  the  places 
of  trust  secured  to  the  principal  leaders  in  the  plot. 

3.  As  the  Queen  will  trust  Essex  with  no  more  regi-  Oct. 
ments  for  Rouen,  no  more  ships  for  Spain,  he  begs  for 
a  command  against  the  Irish  kernes.  Ireland  is  ablaze. 
That  Hugh  O'Neile,  son  of  the  bastard  of  Dundalk, 
who  owes  to  the  policy  and  generosity  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth his  life,  his  education,  his  nobility,  even  his  ascen- 
dency in  his  sept,  has  turned  on  his  benefactress :  lay- 
ing down  his  earldom  of  Tyrone  ;  assuming  the  sover- 
eign and  rebellious  style  of  The  O'Neile  ;  raising  the 
unkempt,  unclothed  Ulster  savages ;  and  filling  the  val- 

2.  Examination  of  Thomas  Wright,  July  24,  1600,  S.  P.  0. ;  Abstract  of  Evi- 
dence against  the  Earl  of  Essex  [July  22,  1600],  S.  P.  0. 

3.  Irish  Correspondence,  1595-98,  S.  P.  0.;  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters, 
691-645;  Council  Reg,  Oct.  29,  1595,  July  19,  1598. 


112  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  3.  leys  from  Inishowen  to  Monaghan  and  Down  with  the 
tumult  of  war.  Fires  burn  on  the  hill-tops.  Churches 
are  profaned,  innocent  homesteads  razed.  The  Gallo- 
glass,  mounted  on  his  brisk  marron,  pricks  through  the 
country,  spearing  his  enemies,  driving  off  their  kine. 
A  horde  of  ferocious  kernes,  shaggy  and  ill-fed,  their 
arms  a  skean  and  pike,  their  dress  a  blanket  or  a  shirt, 
plunge  into  the  houses  of  English  gentlemen,  wreaking 
such  woe  and  shame  on  the  Protestant  settlers  as  pen 
of  man  refuses  to  describe.  An  English  force  keeps 
front  to  the  rebellious  horde,  but  the  fire  darts  out  in 
a  hundred  places.  Connaught  kindles  into  insurrection  ; 
Munster  defies  the  Saxon ;  Ulster  presses  on  the  Pale  ; 
Spanish  ships  stand  off  the  coast ;  Spanish  regiments 
are  forming  at  Ghent  and  at  the  Groyne.  A  day  may 
bring  the  Basques,  the  Walloons,  and  Pandours  to  Kin- 
sale.  Drogheda  is  in  danger.  Dublin  itself  is  not  safe. 

4.  Shakespeare  gives  the  English  passion  voice  :  — - 

"  Now  for  our  Irish  wars  ! 

We  must  supplant  these  rough,  rug-headed  kernes, 
Which  live  like  venom  where  no  venom  else, 
But  only  they,  hath  privilege  to  live  ! " 

So  cries  the  English  king  in  that  new  play  of  Rich- 
ard the  Second,  which  is  now  drawing  crowds  of  citi- 
zens and  courtiers  to  the  Globe.  Troops  are  being 

• 

4.  Shakespeare's  Richard  II.,  editions  of  1597  and  1598;  Camden,  Ann.  Eliz., 
1598;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  May  4,  17,  30,  1598,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Reg., 
July  19,  Dec.  22,  1598. 


TROOPS   LEVIED   FOR  IRELAND.  113 

raised  and  fines  imposed  for  this  new  war  ;  the  recusants    V.  4. 
who  will  not  fight  for  their  country  against  their  creed, 
—  such  men  as  Tresham,  Talbot,  Rookwood,  and  Throck-      ^ 
morton,  —  being  mulcted  in  heavy  rates.     The  force  is 
of   imposing  strength.      Two    thousand   veterans   come 
home  from  the  camp  of  Yere,  their  ranks  filled  up  by 
a  levy  of  youngsters  from  the   loom   and  plough.     In 
all,  some  twenty  thousand  horse   and  foot  are  on  the 
march. 

Who  shall  conduct  them  to  the  coasts  of  Down,  the 
passes  of  the  Foyle  ? 

5.  Essex  asserts  his  claim.  Those  who  would  see 
the  fire  of  the  insurrection  stamped  under  foot  propose  to 
send  out  Raleigh,  Sydney,  or  Montjoy.  But  events  at 
Court  disturb  the  preparations  against  O'Neile.  The 
great  Lord  Burghley  dies,  leaving  vacant  the  Treasury 
and  the  Court  of  Wards.  Essex,  as  usual,  wants  them 
both ;  and  Cecil,  who  thinks  that  offices  held  by  his 
father  ought  to  descend  upoD  himself,  becomes,  as  he 
has  been  before,  a  secret  and  powerful  advocate  for  his 
rival's  nomination  to  a  distant  post.  For  a  time  the 
Queen  will  hear  of  no  such  a  thing ;  yet,  as  Raleigh 
will  not  go,  and  Vere  is  in  the  field,  Essex,  with  an 
underground  and  treacherous  aid  from  Cecil,  gains  his 
suit. 


6.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  May  30,  Aug.  30,  Nov.  8,  1598,  S.  P.  0. ;  Lyt- 
ton  to  Carleton,  Aug.  29,  1598,  S.  P.  0.;  Mathews  to  Carleton,  Sept.  15,  1598, 
S.  P.  0. 


114  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  6.  6.  Cecil's  beautiful  young  niece  still  wears  her  wid- 
ow's weeds :  a  prize  with  which  he  may  either  bribe  an 
enemy  or  fix  a  friend.  She  has  rejected  Pembroke  as 
well  as  Bacon.  To  the  surprise  of  her  gay  and  youth- 
ful suitors,  she  allows  her  uncle  Cecil  to  buy  with  her 
hand  the  unscrupulous  arts  and  venomous  tongue  of 
Coke.  A  first  wife,  who  brought  him  love  and  money, 
not  yet  cold  in  her  grave,  the  grisly  old  bear  of  an 
Attorney-General  marries  this  dainty  and  wilful  dame. 
How  she  is  persuaded  to  such  a  match  no  soul  can  tell. 
Old,  grim,  penurious,  every  way  opposite  to  herself  and 
to  everything  that  she  seems  to  like,  he  has  neither 
the  wit  that  wins  nor  the  fame  that  fills  a  lady's  ear. 
Wags  whisper  that  she  hopes  to  be  able  to  break  his 
heart.  He,  too,  is  rich.  She  has  got  one  fortune  through 
Sir  William  Hatton,  why  not  a  second  fortune  through 
Sir  Edward  Coke  ?  Her  kinsman's  motives  are,  no  one 
doubts,  coarse.  He  has  need  for  such  an  instrument  as 
Coke,  —  close,  supple,  learned,  grinding,  cold  to  his  de- 
pendants, cringing  to  his  superiors.  Nor  is  he  disap- 
pointed in  the  match.  On  Coke's  marriage  into  the 
Cecil  house,  though  the  wife  whom  he  vows  to  love 
rejects  his  name  and  destroys  his  peace,  he  becomes 
to  Cecil  and  to  Cecil's  faction  a  brutal  and  obsequious 
slave. 

7.  At  a  private  meeting  of  the  Privy  Council  held  at 

6.  Autobiographical  Notes  of  Coke  in  Harl.  MSS.  6687,  transcribed  by  John 
Bruce  for  the  Collectanea  Top.  et  Gen.,  vi.  108. 


PLAN  FOR   CALMING  IRELAND.  115 

Essex  House,  only  Cecil,  Fortescue,  and  Buckhurst  pres-    V.  7. 
ent,  a  commission  for  the  lord-lieutenancy  is  drawn.     Es- 
sex  has  had  no  speech  with  Bacon  for  eighteen  months. 

°  Mar.  o. 

Their  ways  now  lie  apart.  In  the  conferences  on  his 
bills  for  restoring  tillage  and  increasing  population  they 
stood  in  hostile  ranks ;  yet,  on  the  eve  of  his  fatal  voy- 
age to  Ireland,  Essex  rides  once  more,  and  for  the  last 
time  now,  to  Gray's  Inn  Square.  Had  he  come  to  seek 
counsel,  no  man  could  have  given  him  safer.  More  than 
any  one  alive  —  more  than  Chichester  or  Montjoy  — 
Bacon  sees  through  the  Irish  question.  Sure  that  Ulster 
will  not  be  calmed  by  the  sword  and  the  rope,  that  no 
dash  from  Cork  to  Coleraine  will  make  a  savage  sept, 
ruled  by  a  Brehon  law,  prefer  husbandry  to  theft,  his 
plan  is  to  clear  the  forests,  to  drain  the  bogs,  to  lay  out 
roads,  to  build  ports  and  havens,  to  plant  new  towns. 
His  hope  lies  in  the  plough,  not  in  the  sword. 

"  We  must  supplant  these  rough,  rug-headed  kernes." 

He  would  have  the  great  officers  of  the  Queen's  govern- 
ment and  army  live  in  the  country,  build  in  it  their 
houses,  as  Sir  Arthur  Chichester,  whom  Cecil  has  sent 
from  Flanders  to  Dublin,  afterwards  builds  his  house  on 
the  Lough  of  Belfast.  But  a  man  like  the  Earl  of  Essex, 
living  only  in  the  air  of  courts  and  the  light  of  camps, 
has  neither  temper,  hardihood,  nor  patience  for  such  a 

7.  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  8, 1599;  Bacon's  Remains,  39,  48;  Certain  Considera- 
tions touching  the  Plantation  in  Ireland,  1606;  Bacon's  Apologie,  23;  Essex  to 
Cecil,  Mar.  29, 1599,  Add.  MSS.  4160. 


116  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  7.    work.     Bacon  tells  him  to  give  up  an  enterprise  in  which 

he  can  neither  serve  his  country  nor  secure  himself  from 

'"'    shame  and  loss.     Essex  has  not  come  to  learn.     With 

March. 

soul  corrupted  by  disloyalty,  he  turns  his  back  on  the  one 
honest  voice  which  even  yet  might  have  saved  his  fortune 
and  his  fame  from  wreck. 

8.  Father  Wright  consults  Cresswell  and  Parsons,  the 
experienced  chiefs  of  the  English  conspiracy  in  Madrid 
and  Rome,  on  these  bold  and  perilous  plots.  The  Jesuit 
Fathers,  doubtful  if  it  be  not  sin  and  folly  to  shed  Cath- 
olic blood  to  raise  Essex  to  a  throne,  urge  him  through 
Wright  to  adopt  the  Infanta's  claim  in  preference  to  his 
own ;  a  course  to  which  Essex,  when  pressed  by  Wright, 
most  sternly  demurs,  as  becomes  a  descendant  of  John 
of  Gaunt.  Philip  and  Clement,  less  deep  in  guile  than 
the  Jesuits,  agree  to  recognize,  and  if  need  be  to  aid,  a 
rebellion  of  the  Earl  and  his  partisans  against  the  Queen, 
on  this  understanding,  —  that  Essex,  when  king,  shall 
become  reconciled  to  the  Church,  shall  leave  Ireland  to 
be  ruled  by  O'Neile  as  viceroy,  shall  abandon  the  Prot- 
estant Netherlanders,  shall  yield  up  Raleigh's  conquests 
and  plantations  in  America,  and  shall  recognize  the 
rights  of  Spain  to  an  exclusive  possession  of  both  the 
Indies.  It  is  understood  that  the  Irish  army  is  to  effect 
this  plot,  of  which  all  the  details  are  to  be  settled  with 
O'Neile. 

8.  Abstract  of  the  Evidence  against  Essex  [July  22, 1600],  S.  P.  0.;  Exam- 
ination of  Wright,  July  24,  1600,  S.  P.  0. 


ESSEX  LORD-DEPUTY.  117 

9.  Twenty  thousand  men  march  to  the  coast  and  cross    V.  9. 
the  sea.     Lee,  Danvers,  Percy  have  all  commands  in  this 

1599 

force.  Constable,  broken  for  bad  conduct,  is  restored  A  „ 
by  Essex  to  his  rank.  Father  Wright  begs  hard  to  be 
taken  with  them ;  but,  although  a  Privy  Councillor  may 
fetch  a  prisoner  to  his  house,  a  lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland 
has  no  power  to  empty  the  London  jails.  All  that  he 
can  do  for  Wright  is  to  get  him  removed  from  Bridewell 
to  the  Clink. 

From  the  hour  of  his  quitting  Whitehall  Essex  assumes 
the  powers  of  a  sovereign  prince.  On  his  way  to  the  coast 
he  sends  back  Lord  Montjoy.  Montjoy  is  his  friend  ;  the 
yet  nearer  friend  of  his  sister,  Lady  Rich.  For  love  of  her, 
Montjoy  has  joined  in  opposition  to  Raleigh  on  the  right 
hand,  to  Cecil  on  the  left ;  but  neither  friendship  for 
Essex,  nor  love  for  Lady  Rich,  would  draw  a  man  so  firm 
in  faith,  so  loyal  to  the  Crown,  to  league  with  a  gang  of 
Papists  against  the  Queen.  Essex  sends  him  back. 

m  From  Drayton  Bassett,  where  Blount  and  Lady  Leices- 
ter live,  Essex  has  the  effrontery  to  write  for  leave  to  ap- 
point Blount  his  Marshal  of  the  Camp.  A  marshal  of  the 
camp  is  the  second  in  command,  the  first  in  activity  and 
influence  ;  to  put  such  a  fellow  as  Blount  in  such  a  place, 
the  Queen  indignantly  demurs.  There  is  Sir  Henry 
Brounker,  an  officer  of  talent  and  experience  ;  let  him 
be  our  marshal.  Essex  pouts  and  sulks.  "  If  she  grant 
me  not  this  favor,"  he  writes  to  Cecil,  "  I  am  maimed 

9.  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  11,  April  2,  1599;  Essex  to  Cecil,  Add.  MSS.  4160; 
Abstract  of  Evidence  against  Essex,  July  22,  1600,  S.  P.  0. 


118  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  9.    of  my  right  arm."     Cecil  takes  care  he  shall  have  his 
way. 


1599. 


10.  When  he  lands  in  Dublin  he  casts  to  the  four  winds 
his  commission  and  instructions.  One  of  his  first  and 
most  insolent  acts  is  to  appoint  the  young  Earl  of  South- 
ampton his  Master  of  the  Horse.  This  friend  and  patron 
of  Shakespeare  is  not  a  Papist,  not  an  ally  of  Blount. 
He  is  a  patriot,  though  not  a  wise  one  ;  a  Protestant, 
though  not  a  zealous  one.  Heady,  amorous,  quarrelsome, 
swift  to  go  right  or  wrong  as  his  passions  tempt  him,  he 
has  vexed  and  grieved  the  Queen  by  falling  madly  and 
licentiously  in  love  with  Mistress  Vernon,  one  of  her 
beautiful  maids  of  honor,  and  filling  her  court  with  the 
fame  of  his  amours.  In  this  offence  against  modesty  he 
has  been  abetted  by  the  young  lady's  first  cousin  Lord 
Essex,  himself  too  frail  as  regards  the  passions,  and  too 
familiar  with  his  mother's  vices  and  his  sister's  infidelities 
to  feel  the  shame  brought  on  his  kin  by  a  scandal  which 
after  all  may  end  in  marriage.  Sent  away  from  London, 
Southampton  had  returned  in  secret,  and  had  married 
the  lady  without  her  sovereign's  knowledge.  For  these 
offences  he  had  been  ordered  into  free  custody.  Break- 
ing his  gage  of  honor,  he  has  stolen  away  to  Dublin, 
where  the  Earl,  in  place  of  sending  back  the  Queen's 
fugitive,  gives  him  the  welcome  which  a  prince  at 


10.  Cecil  to  Southampton,  Sept.  3,  1598,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  to  Essex,  June 
10,  1599,  S.  P.  0.;  Elizabeth  to  Essex,  July  19,  1599,  S.  P.  0.;  Devereux, 
i.  474. 


ISSUE   OF  IRISH   CAMPAIGN.  119 

war  might  give  to  a  deserting  general  from  the  hostile    V.  10. 
camp. 

1599. 

11.  Every  one  knows  the  issue  of  this  Irish  campaign  :     Aug. 
a  lost  summer,  a  corrupted  army,  a  traitorous  truce.     In- 
stead of  smiting  O'Neile,  Lee  arranges  an  interview  on 

the  Lagan,  at  which  the  English  and  Irish  rebels  discuss 
their  terms  and  enter  into  league.  Blount  hails  his  fel- 
lows in  the  Celtic  camp.  Like  the  Irish  traitors,  he  ab- 
hors the  Protestant  Queen,  not  only  as  the  most  powerful 
enemy  of  their  church,  but  as  an  insolent  sovereign  who 
has  spared  their  lives.  They  propose-  to  carry  out  the 
Papal  scheme,  giving  England  to  Essex,  Ireland  to  O'Neile, 
The  Desmonds  and  Fitzmaurices,  not  less  than  the  O'Don- 
nels  and  O'Kanes,  are  privy  to  a  league  in  which  the  Celts 
drive  a  bargain  with  their  allies  ;  for  while  the  Roman 
Catholics  are  to  get  the  whole  of  Ireland  to  themselves, 
they  claim  immunities  in  England  equal  to  those  of  the 
rival  creed.  They  are  to  enjoy  on  the  Thames,  not  alone 
freedom  of  conscience,  but  street  processions  of  the  host 
and  public  performance  of  the  mass. 

12.  Essex  breaks  up  his  camp  at  Drogheda ;  hurries     sept, 
to  Dublin,  Blount  at  his  side,  Danvers,  Constable,  Lee 


11.  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  646-654;  Blount's  Confessions,  State  Trials, 
i.  1415. 

12.  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters,  655 ;  Blount's  Confessions,  State  Trials,  i. 
1415 ;  Bacon's  Notes  to  Camden,  Works,  vi.  359 ;  Memorandum  of  Precaution- 
ary Measures,  Aug.  1599,  S.  P.  0. ;  List  of  Army  in  Kent  and  Essex,  Aug.  1599, 
S.  P.  0. 


120  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V7. 12.    at   his  heels ;    crosses  the   sea,  leaving  Ireland  without 

an  army  or  a  government ;   the  English  settlers  aghast 

15"'    at  this  desertion,  the  Ulster  rebels  elate  with  joy.     At 

Sept. 

Milford  Haven  they  receive  intelligence  which  breaks 
down  all  their  plans.  The  country  rings  with  arms. 
While  they  have  been  conspiring  with  O'Neile,  the  Privy 
Council,  under  guise  of  preparing  to  repel  an  expected 
landing  of  the  Spaniards,  have  drawn  out  the  musters, 
set  the  trainbands  in  motion,  filled  the  city  with  chosen 
troops.  "Wags  have  mocked  and  jested  over  this  invis- 
ible Armada ;  but  Essex  lands  at  Milford  Haven  to  find 
his  road  to  London  barred  by  a  truly  formidable  force. 
Nottingham  covers  the  capital  with  a  camp  of  six  thou- 
sand horse  and  foot.  Twenty-five  thousand  men  answer 
to  the  roll  in  Kent  and  Essex.  Under  such  a  change 
of  affairs,  even  Blount  dissuades  a  march  on  London. 
The  road  is  long ;  halberdiers  cannot  fly,  like  Imogen, 
on  the  wings  of  love  ;  and  the  very  maddest  of  the 
plotters  knows  that  the  Protestant  gentlemen  of  Glou- 
cester, Wilts,  and  Berks  will  not  stare  idly  on  while 
gangs  of  mutinous  troopers,  led  by  Papist  captains,  march 
past  to  dethrone  their  Queen.  With  the  whole  army  of 
Drogheda  at  their  backs,  they  could  not  force  their  way 
through  six  or  eight  warlike  shires.  Better,  says  Blount, 
prick  on  alone.  A  chance  remains  that  by  dash  and 
swiftness  Essex  may  surprise  the  Queen,  put  his  friends 
in  power,  and  return  to  Dublin  to  mature  his  plans. 
s  ,,t.  28.  To  horse,  to  horse !  No  pause  in  the  ride  till  he  flings 
himself,  splashed  and  faint,  at  his  sovereign's  feet. 


ESSEX  IN   CUSTODY.  121 

13.  Lee,  Danvers,  Constable,  Davis,  spur  into  London.  V.  13. 
News-writers  stare  at  the  swarms  of  captains  and  com- 
manders from  the  Irish  camp  which  suddenly  hustle  Oct  ' 
through  the  taverns  of  Paternoster  How  and  fill  the  pit 
of  the  theatre,  where  Rutland  and  Southampton  are 
daily  seen,  and  where  Shakespeare's  company,  in  the 
great  play  of  Richard  II.,  have  for  more  than  a  year 
been  feeding  the  public  eye  with  pictures  of  the  dep- 
osition of  kings.  But  the  plotters  have  met  their 
mates.  The  Earl  is  in  charge.  From  the  presence  of 
his  Queen  he  has  passed  into  custody  ;  when  a  solemn 
act  of  the  Privy  Council  having  declared  him  unfit  to 
discharge  the  duties  of  Earl  Marshal,  Privy  Councillor, 
and  Master  of  the  Ordnance,  a  writ  from  the  Star-Cham-  1600. 
ber  cites  him  to  answer  for  his  suspicious  dealings  with 
O'Neile.  This  citation  he  disobeys.  After  a  brief  con- 
finement in  the  house  of  Lord  Keeper  Egerton,  he  is 
placed  in  permanent  free  custody  in  his  own  great  man- 
sion in  the  Strand. 

14.  The  Council  hastens  to  repair  the  evil  done  in 
Dublin.  Montjoy  goes  over  as  Lord  Deputy.  Stern 
letters  recall  the  Lords  Justices  and  magistrates  of  Ire- 
land to  their  duty.  Threads  of  the  great  conspir- 

13.  Rowland  White,  Oct.  3,  11,  1599,  in  Sydney  Papers,  ii.  130,  132 ;  Deve- 
reux's  Lives  of  the  Earls  of  Essex,  ii.  76  - 117 ;  Speeches  in  the  Star  Chamber 
on  Essex's  Expedition  to  Ireland,  Nov.  1599,  S.  P.  0.;  Essex  to  Eliz.,  Feb.  11, 
22,  1600,  S.  P.  0. 

14.  Wood's  Confessions,  Jan.  20,  1599-1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Keg.,  Feb.  2, 
1600. 

6 


122  FRANCIS  BACON. 


V.  14.    acy  soon  appear.     Among  the  witnesses  against  Essex, 
Thomas  Wood,  a  nephew  of  Lord  Fitzmaurice,  makes 


1600.      ... 

this  declaration :  — 

ret)* 


He  saith  that,  happening  to  be  with  the  Lord  Fitz- 
maurice, Baron  of  Lixnaw,  at  his  house  of  Lixnaw,  be- 
tween Michaelmas  and  Allhallowtide,  the  said  Baron 
walking  abroad  with  the  said  Wood  asked  him  what  force 
the  Earl  of  Essex  was  of  in  England.  He  answered  he 
could  not  tell,  but  said  he  was  well  beloved  of  the  com- 
monalty. Then  said  the  Baron  that  the  Earl  was  gone 
for  England,  and  had  discharged  many  of  the  companies 
of  Ireland  ;  and  that  if  her  Majesty  were  dead  he  should 
be  King  of  England  and  O'Neile  to  be  Viceroy  of  Ireland  ; 
and  whensoever  he  should  have  occasion  and  could  send 
for  them,  he  would  send  him  eight  thousand  men  out  of 
Ireland.  The  said  Wood  asked  the  Baron  how  he  knew 
that,  and  he  answered  that  the  Earl  of  Desmond  sent  him 
word  so.  * 

THOMAS  WOOD. 

This  statement,  wholly  in  the  handwriting  of  Wood,  re- 
mains in  the  State  Paper  Office. 
Below  it  Cecil  has  written  :  — 

This  confession  and  declaration  was  made  before  us 
whose  names  are  underwritten  this  20th  of  January,  1599 
(1600)  ;  and  after  being  charged  of  us  severally  and 
jointly  to  declare  nothing  but  truth  upon  his  soul  and 


ESSEX  IN  CUSTODY.  123 

conscience,  as  he  would  answer  it  at  the  latler  day,  he    V-  14. 

hath  both  protested  this  to  be  true  that  he  hath  written, 

1600. 
and  that  he  is  a  Christian  and  would  not  say  an  untruth      Felx 

in  this  kind  for  all  the  good  in  the  world  ;  and  for  proof 
thereof  hath  again  set  his  hand  in  our  presence. 

THOMAS  WOOD. 

T.  BUCKHURST. 

NOTTINGHAM. 

ROBEET  CECIL. 

J.  FOETESCUE. 

15.  The  world  parts  suddenly  from  the  fallen  man.  March- 
Those  who  know  or  suspect  the  depth  of  his  guilt  shun 
him  as  one  who  is  lost  past  hope  ;  those  who  see  no  more 
than  his  disgrace  fall  off  from  a  losing  cause.  Cecil 
spurns  his  advances ;  when  the  old  Countess  of  Leicester 
begs  of  him  to  save  her  son,  Cecil  answers  her  that  his 
fate  is  with  a  higher  power.  Babington,  Bishop  of  Wor- 
cester, glances  at  him  cautiously  in  a  Court  sermon ;  but 
when  sent  for  by  the  angry  Queen  he  denies  that  he 
pointed  to  the  Earl.  Save  his  cousin,  Lady  Scrope,  and 
his  sisters,  Lady  Rich  and  the  Countess  of  Northumber- 
land, not  one  of  his  confederates  or  companions  dares  to 
speak  for  him  a  word.  Blount  slinks  with  his  wife  to 
Drayton  Bassett.  Southampton  goes  abroad  to  fight 
Lord  Gray,  breaking  his  parole  for  the  second  time ;  an 


15.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Feb.  22,  Mar.  5,  1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Cecil  to  Count- 
ess of  Leicester,  Mar.  21,  1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Sydney  Papers,  ii.  132,  213;  Council 
Reg.,  Aug.  3,  17, 1600. 


FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  15.  offence  for' which  the  council,  though  loath  to  strike  the 
amiable  and  misled  young  gentleman,  strips  him  of  his 

MMCh'<  company  of  horse.  Lee  makes  no  sign.  Danvers  and 
Constable  hide  their  heads.  These  Bobadils  of  Drogheda 
and  Milford  skulk  about  the  kens  of  Newgate  Street  and 
Carter  Laue ;  and  only  a  group  of  women,  kin  to  the 
Queen,  who  gloom  about  the  court  in  black,  find  courage 
for  even  tears  and  weeds. 

Yea ;  there  is  one.  In  this  dead  silence  of  despair, 
one  voice  alone  dares  to  breath  the  Earl's  name,  to 
whisper  in  the  royal  ear  excuses  for  his  fault,  to  plead 
with  that  leonine  heart  for  the  mercy  which  becomes 
a  monarch  better  than  his  crown. 

Apni.  16.  Any  man  save  Francis  Bacon  would  have  left  the 
Earl  to  his  fate.  The  connection  has  been  to  him  waste 
of  character  and  waste  of  tune.  The  hope  of  making 
Essex  chief  of  the  national  party  has  come  to  naught 
and  their  intercourse  has  ceased.  To  Bacon,  and  to 
all  his  kin,  the  Earl  has  brought  anxiety,  grief,  and 
shame.  The  loss  of  rank  and  power  is  the  least  part 
of  his  loss ;  that  loving  and  beloved  brother,  to  whom 
the  Essays  are  so  tenderly  inscribed,  has  now  sunk 
past  hope,  the  victim  of  his  companion's  riot  and  evil 
ways.  Despite  the  warnings  of  the  Saint  of  God,  though 
Anthony  and  Essex  had  both  promised  her  to  amend 
their  ways,  they  have  run  from  bad  to  worse,  until  one 

16.  Lady  Bacon  to  Anthony  Bacon,  various  dates,  in  Lambeth  MSS.  649, 
650;  Devereux,  i.  406. 


INTERCEDES   FOR  ESSEX.  125 

is  about  to  sink  into  political  crime,  the  other  into  a    V-  16. 

premature  grave. 

1600. 

17.  The  prospects,  the  affections  of  Bacon  and  Essex  June, 
now  lie  apart,  distant  as  the  temperate  and  the  torrid 
zones.  For  two  whole  years  they  have  met  but  once ; 
to  part  less  near  in  opinions  than  before.  All  that 
Bacon  foresaw  from  the  Irish  expedition  has  come  to 
pass.  The  voyage  has  failed.  More  than  the  visible 
failure  Bacon  does  not  know ;  nothing  of  the  inter- 
views with  Wright ;  nothing  of  the  understanding  with 
the  Jesuits ;  nothing  of  the  Pope's  approval ;  nothing 
of  the  compact  with  O'Neile.  Cecil  keeps  these  for- 
midable secrets  close,  sharing  them,  if  with  any  one, 
only  with  his  creature  and  dependant  Coke.  In  other 
business  of  the  Crown,  in  admiralty  affairs,  revenue 
affairs,  in  debts,  in  grants,  and  fines,  above  all  in  arbi- 
trations, Bacon  is  now  constantly  employed  by  the 
Crown.  Instructions  from  the  Privy  Council  run  to 
Yelverton,  Coke,  Fleming,  and  Bacon.  In  cases  of  dis- 
pute, as  in  those  of  Blundel,  of  Perrim,  of  Trachey,  he 
is  often  employed  alone.  But  in  taking  the  confes- 
sions, in  confronting  the  spies  and  prisoners  of  the 
Irish  plot,  he  has  no  share.  Yet,  knowing  no  more  of 
it  than  all  men  know,  why  should  he  risk  his  future 
to  save  a  man  who  has  covered  him  with  misfortunes, 
who  ha's  sought  his  advice  to  cast  it  in  his  teeth  ? 

17.  Council  to  Yelverton,  Coke,  Fleming,  and  Bacon,  Nov.  9, 1600,  S.  P.  0. ; 
Council  Reg.,  Feb.  2,  28,  July  6,  Sept.  29,  Dec.  24,  1600. 


126  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  18.       18.  Bacon  is  not  the  man  to  ask.      Seeing  the  Earl 

crushed    without    being    charged,    supposing   him    free 

>0°'    from   crime,  he   carries  his   plea   of  clemency    to   the 

June. 

throne.  Often  in  the  Queen's  closet  on  public  duty, 
he  seizes  every  opening  for  this  plea.  Never  had  such 
an  offender  such  an  advocate.  Gayly,  gravely,  in  speech, 
in  song,  he  besets  the  royal  ear.  He  kneels  to  her 
Majesty  at  Nonesuch  ;  he  coaxes  her  at  Twickenham 
Park.  "When  she  ferries  to  his  lodge,  he  presents  her 
with  a  sonnet  on  mercy ;  when  she  calls  him  to  the 
palace,  he  reads  to  her  letters  purporting  to  come  from 
the  penitent  Earl.  What  Babington  dares  not  hint 
from  the  pulpit,  Bacon  dares  to  urge  in  the  private 
chamber.  Wit,  eloquence,  persuasion  of  the  rarest 
power,  he  lavishes  on  this  ungrateful  cause.  At  times 
the  Queen  seems  shaken  in  her  mood  ;  but  she  knows 
her  kinsman  better  than  his  advocate  knows  him. 
Spain  still  threatens  a  descent ;  and  Ireland  rocks  with 
the  tumult  of  civil  war.  Those  scenes  of  Shakespeare's 
play  disturb  her  dreams.  This  play  has  had  a  long 
and  splendid  run,  not  less  from  its  glorious  agony  of 
dramatic  passion  than  from  the  open  countenance  lent 
to  it  by  the  Earl,  who,  before  his  voyage,  was  a  con- 
stant auditor  at  the  Globe,  and  by  his  noble  companions 
Rutland  and  Southampton.  The  great  parliamentary 
scene,  the  deposition  of  Richard,  not  in  the  printed 
book,  was  probably  not  in  the  early  play ;  yet  the 

18.  Abstract  of  Evidence  against  Essex,  July  22,  1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Shake- 
speare's Richard  II.,  editions  of  1598  and  1608. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  "RICHARD   THE   SECOND."  127 

representation  of  a  royal  murder  and  a  successful  usur-   V.  18. 
pation   on  the  public  stage  is   an  event  to  be  applied 
by  the  groundlings  in  a  pernicious  and  disloyal  sense.     June 
Tongues  whisper  to  the  Queen  that  this  play  is  part 
of  a  great  plot,  to  teach  her  subjects  how  to  murder 
kings.      They  tell  her   she  is  Richard  ;  Essex,  Boling- 
broke.      These   warnings    sink   into   her   soul.      "When 
Lambard,  Keeper  of  the   Records,   waits   upon   her   at 
the  palace,  she  exclaims  to  him,  "  I  am  Richard,  know 
you  not  that  ?  " 

19.  Nor  does  the  play  by  Shakespeare  stand  alone. 
One  of  the  Earl's  friends  publishes  on  this  story  of  the 
deposition  of  Richard  a  singular  and  mendacious  tract, 
which,  under  ancient  names  and  dates,  gives  a  false  and 
disloyal  account  of  things  and  persons  in  his  own  age : 
the  childless  sovereign ;  the  association  of  defence ;  the 
heavy  burden  of  taxation  ;  the  levy  of  double  subsidies  ; 
the  prosecution  of  an  Irish  war,  ending  in  general  dis- 
content ;  the  outbreak  of  blood ;  the  solemn  deposition 
and  final  murder  of  the  prince.  The  book  has  no  name 
on  the  title-page,  —  that  of  John  Hayward  signs  the  ded- 
ication. Bolingbroke  is  made  the  hero  of  the  tale  ;  and, 
that  even  the  grossly  stupid  may  not  miss  its  meaning, 
this  lump  of  sedition  is  dedicated  to  the  Earl.  In  one 
place  it  openly  affirms  the  existence  of  a  title  to  the 
throne  superior  to  that  of  the  Queen ! 

19.  Hayward's  First  Part  of  the  Life  of  Henry  IV.,  1599;  Papers  concerning 
the  History  of  Henry  IV.,  the  Letter  Apologetical  written  by  Dr.  Hayward, 
1599,  S.  P.  0. 


128  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  20.        20.   Tliis  proves  too  much  for  Elizabeth.     Packing  the 

—     scribe  in  jail,  she  sends  for  Bacon  to  draw  up  articles 

1600.          .     .  ,  . 
against  him. 

June. 

Had  she  sent  for  Coke! 

To  Bacon's  tenderness  of  human  life  the  poor  scribbler, 
Hayward,  owes  his  subsequent  length  of  days  and  author- 
ship of  other  books.  "  There  is  treason  in  it,"  says  the 
Queen  ;  as  indeed  there  is.  "  Treason,  your  Grace  ?  " 
replies  Bacon ;  "  not  treason,  Madam,  but  felony,  much 
felony."  "  Ha !  "  gasps  her  Highness,  willing  to  hang  a 
rogue  for  one  crime  as  for  another  ;  "  felony,  —  where  ?  " 
"  Where,  Madam  ?  Everywhere,  —  the  whole  book  is  a 
theft  from  Cornelius  Tacitus."  A  light  of  laughter  "breaks 
the  cloud.  "  But,"  says  her  darkening  Highness,  "  Hay- 
ward  is  a  fool ;  some  one  else  has  writ  the  book ;  make 
him  confess  it;  put  him  to  the  rack." 

"  Nay,  Madam,"  pleads  the  advocate  of  mercy ;  "  rack 
not  his  body,  —  rack  his  style.  Give  him  paper  and  pens, 
with  help  of  books  ;  bid  him  carry  on  his  tale.  By  com- 
paring the  two  parts,  I  will  tell  you  if  he  be  the  true 
man." 

July.  21.  Aware  how  strong  are  Bacon's  views  on  political 
crime,  some  of  the  conspirators,  conscious  of  their  own 
guilty  thoughts,  dread  lest  in  these  frequent  passages  with 
the  Queen  he  may  be  taking  part  against  their  lord. 

20.  Bacon's  Apologie,  36 ;  Bacon's  Remains,  42 ;  Matters  wherewith  Dr.  Hay- 
ward  was  charged,  and  Dr.  Hayward's  Confession,  1599,  S.  P.  0. 

21.  Bacon's  Apologie,  47 ;  Birch,  459 ;  Montagu,  xii.  168. 


IMPROVEMENT   IN   ESSEX'S   AFFAIRS.  129 

Fear   gives   suspicion   wing.      Among    themselves    they    V.  21. 

whisper  that  in  the  royal  presence  he  has  pronounced  the 

1600 
offence  treason.     The  true  offence  is  treason  :  but  Bacon 

July. 

has  not  called  it  such,  for  he  has  no  knowledge  of  its 
darker  facts.  He  therefore  meets  and  spurns  the  misrep- 
resentation of  his  words.  In  a  note  to  Lord  Henry  How- 
ard, one  of  the  Roman  Catholic  friends  of  Essex,  he 
writes  with  honest  heat:  "  I  thank  God  my  wit  serveth 
me  not  to  deliver  any  opinion  to  the  Queen  which  my 
stomach  serveth  me  not  to  maintain  ;  one  and  the  same 
conscience  guiding  and  fortifying  me.  The  untruth  of 
this  fable  God  and  my  sovereign  can  witness,  and  there  I 

leave  it For  my  Lord  of  Essex,  I  am  not  servile 

to  him,  having  regard  to  my  superior  duty.  I  have  been 
much  bound  unto  him  ;  on  the  other  side,  I  have  spent 
more  time  and  more  thoughts  about  his  well-doing  than 
ever  I  did  about  mine  own.  I  pray  God  you  his  friends 
amongst  you  be  in  the  right." 

22.  Affairs  grow  brighter  for  the  Earl.  Good  news 
come  in  from  Dublin  and  the  Hague ;  news  that  Des- 
mond has  been  taken,  and  Wexford  pacified  by  Montjoy ; 
that  Yere  and  Nassau  have  fought  a  battle  and  gained  a 
victory  on  Nieuport  sands.  The  Queen's  heart  opens. 
When  the  Earl  now  begs  for  freedom,  she  more  than  ever 
inclines  to  hear  his  prayer.  Cecil  gets  alarmed ;  put- 

22.  Essex  to  Eliz.,  June  21,  1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  July  1, 
26,  1600,  S.  P.  0. ;  Confession  of  D.  Hayward,  July  11,  1600,  S.  P.  0. ;  Abstract 
of  Evidence  against  Essex,  July  22,  1600;  Examination  of  Thomas  Wright, 
July  24, 1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Bacon's  Apologie,  41,  57. 

6*  i 


130  FRANCIS  BACON. 

V.  22.    ting  Wright  and  Hay  ward  under  stern  examination,  he 
frames  from  their  confessions  an  indictment  against  Es- 
j^J0'    sex,  which,  if  half  of  it  were  proved,  would  assuredly 
send  him  to  the  block.     But  an  advocate,  stronger  than 
Cecil,  stands  beside  the  Queen ;  who,  in  season,  as  well 
as  out  of  season,  in  the  midst  of  a  dispute  on  law,  in 
the   turn  of  an   anecdote,  in   a  casual  laugh  or  sigh, 
searches  and  finds  a  way  to  her  heart.     One  day  she 
asks  him  about  his  brother's  gout.      Anthony's  gout  is 
sometimes  better,  sometimes  worse.     "  I  tell  you  how 
it  is,  Bacon,"  says  her  sagacious  Majesty ;  "  these  physi- 
cians give  you  the  same  physic  to  draw  and  to  cure ; 
so  they  first  do  you  good,  and  then   do  you  harm." 
"  Good  God,  Madam ! "  cries  Bacon,  "  how  wisely  you 
speak  of  physic  to  the  body !  consider  of  physic  to  the 
mind.     In  the  case  of  my  Lord  of  Essex,  your  princely 
word  is,  that  you  mean  to  reform  his  mind,  not  to  ruin 
his  fortune.     Have  you  not  drawn  the  humor  ?     Is  it 
not  time  to  apply  the  cure  ?  "     Another"  day  she  tells 
him  the  Earl  has  written  to  her  most  dutifully,  that  she 
felt  moved  by  his  protestations ;  but  that,  when  she  came 
to  the  end,  it  was  all  to  procure  from  her  a  patent  of 
sweet  wines !      "  How  your  Majesty  construes  !  "   says 
Bacon ;  "  as  if  duty  and  desire  could  not  stand  together ! 
Iron  clings  to  the  loadstone  from  its  nature.     A  vine 
creeps  to  the  pole  that  it  may  twine."     "  Speak  to  your 
business,"  says  the  Queen;  speak  for  yourself:  for  the 
Earl  not  a  word." 
Yet  drop  by  drop  the  daily  oil  softens  her  heart.     At 


ESSEX  SET  AT  LAKGE.  131 

length  the  Earl  is  set  at  large ;  though  as  one  to  whom    V-  22. 

much  has  been  pardoned ;   one  who  shall  never  again 

1600. 
command  armies,  or  even  approach  the  Court.     Eliza-     Ju] 

beth  will  see  her  kinsman's  face  no  more.  Shall  he  go 
back  to  the  Irish  camp  ?  "  When  I  send  Essex  back 
into  Ireland,"  says  the  Queen,  "I  will  marry  you, — 
you,  Mr.  Bacon.  Claim  it  of  me." 


132  FRANCIS  BACON. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE    STREET    FIGHT. 

VI.  l.       1.  WHEN  free   to  plot,  Essex,  in  the  secrecy  of  his 

own  house,  and  in  open  breach  of  loyalty   and  honor, 

1600'    renews  the  intrigue  with  Rome.     Blount  returns  from 

Oct. 

Drayton  Basset  to  crowd  Barns  Elms  and  Essex  House, 
the  Earl's  head-quarters  in  and  near  London,  with  the 
most  desperate  of  his  Papist  gangs.  Mad  at  their  loss 
of  time,  they  propose  to  do  without  an  army  what  they 
failed  to  do  with  one.  Enough,  they  say,  to  raise  a 
troop,  to  kill  Raleigh  and  Nottingham,  to  seize  the 
Queen  by  force,  and  summon  a  Parliament  of  their 
own.  Essex  shall  be  swept  to  the  throne  by  a  street 
fight  and  an  act  of  assassination.  Yet,  if  they  still 
pretend  to  believe  him  more  popular  than  Elizabeth, 
they  dare  not  trust  his  chances  and  their  own  safety  to 
an  English  crowd.  Seeking  to  gain  strength  elsewhere, 
they  open  a  deceptive  intercourse  with  James,  incite 
O'Neile  to  resist  by  promises  of  speedy  help,  raise  a 
band  of  their  sturdy  partisans  in  Wales.  One  Eng- 
lishman holding  office,  Sheriff  Smith,  of  London,  prob- 

1.  Nottingham  to  Montjoy,  Goodman,  ii.  14;  Jardine's   Criminal  Trials,  i. 
342;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Oct.  10, 1600,  S.  P.  0. 


PARTISANS   OF   ESSEX.  133 

ably  a  Roman  Catholic,  alone  listens  to  their  schemes.    VI.  1. 

The    Earls   of   Rutland    and    Southampton    sit  at  the 

1600. 
board ;    Rutland  bound,   like   Southampton,  by  a  pair    •  ^ 

of  bright  eyes  to  follow  the  Earl's  fortunes,  being 
deeply  in  love  with  Elizabeth  Sydney,  daughter  of  Lady 
Essex  by  her  first  husband  Sir  Philip ;  neither  of  them 
sharing  his  insane  ambition  or  suspecting  his  murder- 
ous thoughts.  The  partners  of  his  secret  soul  are  those 
Papists,  old  and  new,  who  have  been  and  will  be  the 
terror  and  shame  of  England  for  twenty  years.  Blount 
and  Danvers,  Davis,  Percy,  and  Monteagle  are  not  the 
worst.  From  kens  like  the  Hart's  Horn  and  the  Ship- 
wreck Tavern,  haunts  of  the  vilest  refuse  of  a  great 
city,  the  spawn  of  hells  and  stews,  the  vomit  of  Italian 
cloisters  and  Belgian  camps,  Blount,  long  familiar  with 
the  agents  of  disorder,  unkennels,  in  the  Earl's  name, 
a  pack  of  needy  ruffians  eager  for  any  service  which 
seems  to  promise  pay  to  their  greed  or  license  to  their 
lust. 

2.  These  miscreants  are  wholly  Papists.  Four  of  the 
five  monsters  who,  some  years  later,  dig  the  mine  in 
Vineyard  House,  Robert  Catesby,  John  Wright,  Chris- 
topher Wright,  and  Thomas  Winter,  answer  to  this 
call  of  Blount ;  while  the  fifth,  Thomas  Percy,  is  with 
them  in  the  persons  of  his  more  reputable  kinsmen  Jo- 
celyn  and  Charles.  Nearly  all  their  most  guilty  associ- 

2.  List  of  Prisoners  in  the  Compter  and  the  Poultry,  Feb.  8,  1601,  S.  P.  0. ; 
Lodge,  ii.  545. 


134  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VI.  2.  ates  of  the  Powder  Plot,  Throckmorton,  Lyttleton,  and 
Grant,  join  with  them ;  as  also  Ogle,  Baynham,  White- 
locke,  and  Downhall,  the  dregs  and  waste  of  a  dozen 
Roman  Catholic  Plots. 

3.  They  mean  to  kill  the  Queen,  —  a  palace  murder 
if  she  resist  them,  a  Pomfret  murder  if  she  yield.     Ra- 
leigh  and   Cecil  are  to   share   the  fate  of  Bushy  and 
Green.    Is  Essex  more  squeamish  than  Bolingbroke? 
Is  Blount  less  bold  than  Piers    of   Exton?      Though 
they  advance  towards  their  goal  under  cover  of  a  de- 
sign to  free  the  Queen  from  enemies  who  hold  her  in 
thrall,  the  confession  of  Blount  on  the  scaffold  removes 
all  doubt  of  a  deliberate  plan  to  assassinate  her  if  she 
stand  in  their  way.     "  I  know  and  must  confess,"  said 
the  impenitent  ruffian,  "  if  we  had  failed  in  our  end, 
we  should  even  have  drawn  blood  from  herself."     Nor 
is  this  design  of  dethronement  and  assassination  a  last 
resource   of  men  at  bay.     The   plan  was  formed  two 
years  before.    It  lay  at  the  door  of  all  Father  Wright's 
suggestions,  inspired  the  publication  of  Hayward's  tract, 
controlled  the  understanding  with   O'Neile,   gave  color 
to  the  correspondence  with  King  James. 

4.  At  the  moment  when  this  faction  had  been  strug- 
gling to  secure  the  Irish  command,  Bacon  had  been  en- 


3.  State  Trials,  i.  1415. 

4.  Scottish  Papers  of  Elizabeth,  Ixii.  28,  46,  60,  52,  54;  Ixiii.  18,  15,  22,  29, 
31,  45. 


VALENTINE  THOMAS'S  CONFESSION.  135 

gaged  with  Coke  and  others  in  probing  a  mysterious  crime.    "VI.  4. 

A  Scot  of  many  names  and  characters,  —  Thomas  Ander- 

ifiofl 

son,  Thomas  Alderson,  Valentine  Thomas,  a  servant,  a  sol- 
dier, a  gentleman, — giving  no  good  account  of  his  journey 
to  London,  had  been  brought  into  the  Tower.  Bread  and 
water,  Bacon  and  Coke,  had  brought  him  to  his  knees. 
He  confessed  that  he  had  been  employed  by  the  King 
of  Scots  to  kill  the  Lord  Treasurer  Burghley  and  her 
Majesty  the  Queen.  Here  is  the  confession,  solemnly  at- 
tested :  — 

Collection  of  the  Principal  Points  in  Valentine  Thomas's 
Confession  concerning  the  Practice  against  Her  Majes- 
ty's Person.  Subscribed  by  himself  the  20th  of  De- 
cember, 1598. 

Valentine  Thomas,  otherwise  called  Thomas  Alderson 
or  Anderson,  confesseth  that  his  access  to  the  King  of 
Scotts  was  principally  procured  by  one  John  Stewart  of 
the  Buttery,  who  keepeth  the  King's  door,  and  that  he  re- 
paired to  the  King  at  sundry  times  and  in  sundry  places ; 
and  amongst  divers  speeches  of  many  things  concerning 
the  state  of  England  and  her  Majesty's  person,  the  King 
fell  one  day  into  some  speech  of  the  Lord  Treasurer, 
whom  he  wished  Valentine  Thomas  to  kill,  as  having  ever 
been  his  enemy  about  the  Queen,  which  fact  when  Valen- 
tine undertook  to  execute,  after  some  speeches  how  it 
might  best  be  done,  the  King  further  replied,  "Nay,  I 
must  have  you  do  another  thing  for  me,  and  all  is  one  ; 
for  it  is  all  but  blood.  You  shall  take  an  occasion  to 


136  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VI.  4.  deliver  a  petition  to  the  Queen  in  manner  as  you  shall 
think  good,  and  so  may  you  come  near  to  stab  her."  And 
Valentine  told  the  King  that  it  was  a  dangerous  piece  of 
work,  but  he  would  do  it,  so  the  King  would  reward  him 
thereafter,  and  the  King  said,  "  You  shall  have  enough." 
And  after  this,  Valentine  took  his  leave  of  the  King,  and 
said  he  was  to  go  to  Glasgow  for  a  time  to  his  kinsman's 
wedding ;  and  the  King  said,  "  Go,  as  you  say,  to  Glasgow, 
and  then  come  again,  when  you  hear  that  Sorleboy  is 
come."  And  so  he  left  the  King,  and  the  Laird  Arkin- 
glasse  came  to  the  King. 

[Signed]        VALENTYNE  THOMAS. 
[Attested  by]     JOHN  PEYTON. 

EDW.  COKE. 

THO.  FLEMYNG. 

FR.  BACON. 

WM.  WARD. 

The  Government  has  kept  this  story  secret.  The  Queen, 
indeed,  professes  to  believe  it  false,  and  she  is  wise  to  do 
so.  James  stands  beyond  her  reach  ;  her  courts  cannot 
punish  him ;  after  her  death  he  must  be  King.  To  prove 
him  an  assassin  is  to  make  of  him,  and  of  all  who  sup- 
port his  claims,  the  most  ruthless  of  her  foes.  James, 
knowing  of  Thomas's  arrest,  is  anxious  to  be  spared  the 
disgrace  of  a  public  trial ;  yet  the  knowledge  that  such  a 
crime  has  been  contemplated  helps  to  nerve  the  hand  of 
every  one  who  loves  his  Queen,  —  the  visible  embodiment 
of  English  virtue  and  English  strength. 


ATTEMPT   TO   ASSASSINATE   RALEIGH.  137 

5.  If  only  the  Papists  share  the  heart  of  Blount,  still,    VI.  5. 
where  he  fancies  that  either  private  love  or  lust  of  spoil 

1601 

will  tempt  a  man  to  arm,  he  throws  his  line.  From  JMU' 
Lancashire,  from  Norfolk,  and  from  Devon,  friends  of  the 
conspirators  prick  to  town.  Among  them  comes  Sir 
Ferdinando  Gorges,  governor  of  Plymouth,  a  brave  and 
loyal  gentleman,  akin  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  who,  seeing 
him  drawn  into  a  dangerous  plot,  sends  to  warn  him. 
Blount,  now  ready  for  the  blow  that  is  to  make  him 
father-in-law  to  a  king,  persuades  Gorges  to  invite  the 
Captain  of  the  Queen's  Guard  to  come  and  speak  with 
him  at  Essex  House.  Raleigh  jumps  into  his  barge. 
At  Essex-stairs  the  plotters  beg  him  to  land;  but  find- 
ing the  fox  too  wise  to  trust  his  life  in  such  hands, 
Blount,  throwing  off  the  mask,  sends  an  armed  boat  in 
chase  of  him,  which  failing  to  catch  its  prey,  fires  four 
pieces  into  his  barge. 

6.  The  blood   of  the   conspirators   mounts  with  this    *<*-6. 
attempt   at  assassination.      On    Sunday  they  will  rise ; 

the  pretext  to  be  spread  through  the  streets  and  lanes 
being  that  Raleigh  has  formed  a  plot  to  murder  the 
Earl.  The  parts  in  the  play  are  all  given  out.  While 
Smith  secures  the  city  in  their  rear,  a  force  will  march 
from  Essex  House  and  seize  the  avenues  of  Whitehall. 
Blount  is  to  keep  the  palace-gates,  Davis  the  hall,  Dan- 


6.  Declaration  of  the  Practice  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  1601;  Gorges's  Answer  to 
certain  Imputations,  quoted  in  Cayley,  i.  337 ;  State  Trials,  i.  1424. 
6.  Jardine's  Criminal  Trials,  i.  320. 


138  FRANCIS  BACON. 

n.  6.  vers  the  entrance  of  the  presence-chamber,  while  Essex 
himself,  pushing  into  the  royal  closet,  is  to  force  the 

160L  a   j       i.  •   ij 

Feb      a£ec*  Queen,  sword  m  hand,  to  yield. 

7.  To  fan  the  courage  of  their  crew,  and  prepare  the 
citizens  for  news  of  a  royal  deposition,  the  chiefs  of 
the  insurrection  think  good  to  revive  for  a  night  their 
favorite  play.  They  send  for  Augustine  Phillips,  mana- 
ger of  the  Blackfriars  theatre,  to  Essex  House.  Mont- 
eagle,  Percy,  and  two  or  three  more,  —  among  them 
Cuffe  and  Meyrick,  gentlemen  whose  names  and  faces 
he  does  not  recognize,  —  receive  him ;  and  Lord  Mont- 
eagle,  speaking  for  the  rest,  tells  him  they  want  to  have 
played  the  next  day  Shakespeare's  deposition  of  Richard 
the  Second.  Phillips  objects  that  the  play  is  stale,  that 
a  new  one  is  running,  and  that  the  company  will  lose 
money  by  a  change.  Monteagle  meets  his  objections. 
The  theatre  shall  not  lose  ;  a  host  of  gentlemen  from 
Essex  House  will  fill  the  galleries ;  if  there  is  fear  of 
loss,  here  are  forty  shillings  to  make  it  up. 
Feb.  7.  Phillips  takes  the  money  ;  and  King  Richard  is  duly 
deposed  for  them  and  put  to  death. 

Feb.  s.  8.  Next  morning,  after  the  play,  when  the  conspira- 
tors are  about  to  rise,  Egerton,  Popham,  and  Knollys 
knock  at  the  gates  of  Essex  House.  This  visit  of  the 

7.  Examination  of  Augustine  Phillips,  Feb.  18,  1601,  S.  P.  0.     This  exami- 
nation has  been  printed  by  Mr.  Collier,  but  with  an  error  in  the  names. 

8.  Council  Reg.,  Feb.  14,  1601;  State  Trials,  i.  1333-1409. 


ENDEAVORS  TO  RAISE  THE   CITY.  139 

Lord  Keeper,  the  Lord  Chief  Justice,  and  the  Queen's    VI.  8. 

Chamberlain,  disconcerts  their  plains.     They  meant  to 

1601. 
begin  by  a  street  tumult  and   a  march  on  Whitehall,    Feb-8 

under  cover  of  a  design  to  punish  Raleigh  and  restore 
the  Queen  to  her  freedom  of  choice.  The  arrival  of 
these  great  officers  of  State  compels  them  either  to  lay 
down  their  arms  and  submit  to  the  law,  or  to  rush  into 
the  city,  raising  the  cry  of  war  against  the  Queen.  Mad 
as  the  action  seems,  they  choose  to  strike.  Putting  the 
Ministers  under  guard,  the  Papist  rabble,  Blount,  Catesby, 
Tresham,  Danvers,  Davis,  Wright,  Grant,  Lyttleton, 
Baynham,  and  their  fellows,  tear  past  Temple-bar,  yell- 
ing to  the  astonished  citizens  to  arm  and  follow  the 
young  Earl. 

9.  The  Queen  sits  in  her  palace  superbly  calm.   Raleigh 
himself  has  scarcely  her  nerve  of  steel.     Told  at  dinner 
that  her  faithless  kinsman  is  in  arms  against  her,  she  eats 
her  meal,  no  more  disturbed  than  by  a  tumult  on  the 
stage.     When,  some  minutes  later,  comes  in  news  that 
London  has  risen  for  the  Earl,  she  proudly  puts  aside  the 
lie :  "  He  who  placed  me  in  this  seat  will  preserve  me 
in  it." 

10.  Essex    is  no    more   Bolingbroke   than   Elizabeth 
Richard.     It  is  Sunday  morning,  and  the  people  crowd 

9.  iirch,  ii.  468;  Jardine's  Criminal  Trials,  i.  309. 

10.  Lodge's  Illustrations,  ii.  545;  List  of  Prisoners  in  the  Poultry  and  the 
Compter,  Feb.  8,  1601,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Reg.,  Feb.  14,  1601. 


140  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VI.  10.  the  streets  ;  some  making  holiday,  more  on  their  way  to 
church.  Yet,  though  the  Earl  rides  past  them,  not  a 

j^s'  man  from  Temple  Bar  to  Cheap  arms  to  follow  this  de- 
scendant of  John  of  Gaunt.  As  the  Papists  wheel  into 
the  city,  the  inhabitants  shut  their  gates.  Halberds  and 
lances  soon  gleam  out  from  city  doors ;  not  to  guard  the 
Earl,  but  to  defend  religion  and  the  Queen  ;  so  that, 
when  the  baffled  insurgents,  pressed  from  the  upper  lanes 
about  Guildhall,  beat  a  retreat  towards  St.  Paul's,  they 
find  the  gorge  of  Ludgate  and  the  long  line  of  approaches 
to  Essex  House  blocked  up  with  pikes.  Deceived  in  the 
promises  of  Smith,  the  despairing  band  fall  back  on  Lud- 
gate Hill,  where  Levison,  with  a  party  of  soldiers,  guards 
the  pass.  Blount  sounds  a  charge.  Some  fall,  some 
turn,  some  cut  their  way  through.  Seeing  his  old  adver- 
sary, Waite,  in  the  ranks  before  him,  Blount  rushes  upon 
him,  and,  though  faint  with  wounds,  chops  the  assassin 
down.  It  is  the  last  pang  of  joy  before  he  yields. 

The  game  is  now  up.  All  London  is  against  them  in 
an  hour,  as  England  will  be  in  a  week.  The  gangs  dis- 
perse. Some  crawl  into  alehouse-vaults  ;  some  leap  into 
boats  and  drop  with  the  tide  ;  but  every  honest  man's 
hand  is  against  them,  and  at  sundown  most  of  the  lead- 
ers are  safe  in  jail.  In  less  than  forty-eight  hours  from 
the  first  rebellious  shout  near  Temple-bar,  Ogle  and 
Throckmorton  are  in  the  Gatehouse ;  Baynham,  Lyt- 
tleton,  and  Percy  in  the  Fleet ;  Smith  and  Constable 
in  the  Poultry ;  Blount  in  Mr.  Newsom's  house  in  Paul's 
Churchyard,  when  his  wounds  allow,  to  be  carried  to 


TRIAL   OF  ESSEX.  141 

the  Tower ;   Whitelocke  in  the  Marshalsea ;  Catesby  in  VI.  10. 
the  house  of  Sheriff  Gamble ;  Grant  and  the  two  Wrights 
in  the  White  Lion ;  Danvers,  Essex,  Lee,  Southampton,    Feb  8 
and  Monteagle  in  the  Tower. 

11.   Swift  justice  is  the  only  mercy  they  can  now  hope   Feb.  19. 
from  man. 

Never  has  criminal  fairer  trial,  less  partial  judges,  than 
the  Earl.  His  peers,  the  companions  of  his  youth,  the 
connections  of  his  blood,  are  summoned  by  a  special 
message  from  the  Crown.  The  most  odious  facts  against 
him  are  withheld  ;  the  Government  wishing  to  spare  his 
memory,  though  they  cannot  in  honor,  and  dare  not  in 
policy  spare  his  life.  They  shrink  from  proclaiming  to 
the  world  that  a  kinsman  of  the  Queen  has  been  in 
treacherous  intercourse  with  Jesuits  and  the  Pope.  Not 
a  word  is  said  on  the  trial  about  his  midnight  interviews 
with  Father  Wright ;  not  a  word  about  his  complicity  in 
the  publication  of  Hayward's  tract.  Only  the  obvious 
facts  are  proved,  but  these  suffice.  From  the  hour  of  his 
rising  his  fate  has  been  sealed.  That  girlish  romance  of 
the  ring,  that  still  more  girlish  tale  of  Elizabeth's  weak- 
ness and  change  of  mind,  are  idle  mirage  of  the  brain. 
Camden,  indeed,  speaks  of  her  hesitancy ;  but  Camden 
wrote  after  the  Queen's  death,  when  it  had  become  fash- 
ionable at  court  to  speak  well  of  the  Earl.  Jardine  was 
the  first  to  remark  that  this  rumor  of  her  changes  and 
hesitations  is  unsupported  by  any  one  passage  in  the 

11.  Council  Reg.,  Feb.  13, 1601;  Jardine,  i.  376. 


142  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VI.  11.  State  Papers.  In  fact,  Elizabeth  never  in  her  life 
showed  less  weakness  than  in  the  case  of  her  rebellious 

Feb  jg  kinsman.  For  a  crime  like  his  there  was  no  mercy  but 
the  grave. 

12.  Called  by  the  Privy  Council  to  bear  his  part  in 
this  great  drama,  Bacon  no  more  shirks  his  duty  at 
the  bar  than  Levison  shirked  his  duty  at  Ludgate  Hill, 
or  Raleigh  his  duty  at  Charing  Cross.  As  her  Council 
Learned  in  the  Law,  he  has  no  more  choice  or  hesita- 
tion about  his  duty  of  defence  than  her  Captain  of  the 
Guard.  Raleigh  and  Bacon  have  each  tried  to  save 
the  Earl  as  long  as  he  remained  an  honest  man ;  but 
England  is  their  first  love,  and  by  her  faith,  her  free- 
dom, and  her  Queen,  they  must  stand  or  fall. 

Never  is  stern  and  holy  duty  done  more  gently  on 
a  criminal  than  by  Bacon  on  this  trial.  He  aggravates 
nothing.  If -he  condemns  the  action,  he  refrains  from 
needless  condemnation  of  the  man.  Here  is  his  speech, 
(set  down,  though  it  has  already  appeared  in  print, 
that  the  reader  may  have  the  whole  case  before  bis 
eyes  without  trouble  of  turning  to  another  book) :  — 

"  My  Lord,  I  expected  not  that  the  matter  of  defence 
would  have  been  excused  this  day;  to  defend  is  law- 
ful, but  to  rebel  in  defence  is  not  lawful ;  therefore 
what  my  Lord  of  Essex  hath  here  delivered,  in  my 

12  CouncU  to  Bacon,  Feb.  18, 1601,  S.  P.  0.;  Abstract  of  Evidence  against 
Essex,  July  22, 1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Jardine  i.  316-321,  351,  360. 


SPEECHES   ON  ESSEX'S  TRIAL.  143 

conceit  seemeth  to  be  simile  prodigio.  I  speak  uot  to  VI.  12. 
simple  men,  but  to  prudent,  grave,  and  wise  peers,  who 
can  draw  up  out  of  the  circumstances  the  things  them-  Feb  19 
selves.  And  this  I  must  needs  say,  it  is  evident  that 
my  Lord  of  Essex  had  planted  a  pretence  in  his  heart 
against  the  Government,  and  now,  under  color  of  ex- 
cuse, he  layeth  the  cause  upon  his  particular  enemies. 
My  Lord  of  Essex,  I  cannot  resemble  your  proceedings 
more  rightly  than  to  one  Pisistratus,  in  Athens,  who, 
coming  into  the  city  with  the  purpose  to  procure  the 
subversion  of  the  kingdom  and  wanting  aid  for  the 
accomplishing  his  aspiring  desires,  and  as  the  surest 
means  to  win  the  hearts  of  the  citizens  unto  him,  he 
entered  the  city,  having  cut  his  body  with  a  knife,  to 
the  end  they  might  conjecture  he  had  been  in  danger 
of  his  life.  Even  so  your  Lordship  gave  out  in  the 
streets  that  your  life  was  sought  by  the  Lord  Cobham 
and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  by  this  means  persuading  your- 
selves, if  the  city  had  undertaken  your  cause,  all  would 
have  gone  well  on  your  side.  But  the  imprisoning  the 
Queen's  councillors,  what  reference  had  that  fact  to  my 
Lord  Cobham,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  or  the  rest  ?  You 
allege  the  matter  to  have  been  resolved  on  a  sudden. 
No,  you  were  three  months  in  the  deliberation  thereof. 
0,  my  Lord,  strive  with  yourself  and  strip  off  all  ex- 
cuses ;  the  persons  whom  you  aimed  at,  if  you  rightly 
understand  it,  are  your  best  friends.  All  that  you  have 
said,  or  can  say,  in  answer  to  these  matters,  are  but 
shadows.  It  were  your  best  course  to  confess  and  not 
to  justify." 


144  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VI.  12.       What  a  contrast  to  the  style  of  Coke !     Later  in  the 
day,  after  hours  of  prevarication  on  the  part  of  Essex, 

IfiOl 

Bacon  speaks  again,  in  a  warmer  tone,  but  without  a 

reb.  19* 

particle  of  rancor  in  his  words  :  — 

"My  Lord,  I  have  never  yet  seen,  in  any  case,  such 
favor  shown  to  any  prisoner  ;  so  many  digressions,  such 
delivering  of  evidence  by  fractions,  and  so  silly  a  defence 
of  such  great  and  notorious  treasons.  Your  Lordship 
may  see  how  weakly  my  Lord  of  Essex  hath  shadowed 
his  purpose,  and  how  slenderly  he  hath  answered  the 
objections  against  him.  But  admit  the  case  that  the 
Earl's  intent  were,  as  he  would  have  it,  to  go  as  a  sup- 
pliant to  her  Majesty,  shall  petitioners  be  armed  and 
guarded  ?  Neither  is  it  a  mere  point  of  law,  as  my 
Lord  of  Southampton  would  have  it  believed,  that  con- 
demns them  of  treason,  but  it  is  apparent  in  common 
sense ;  to  consult,  to  execute,  to  run  together  in  num- 
bers, in  doublets  and  hose,  armed  with  weapons,  what 
color  of  excuse  can  be  alleged  for  this  ?  And  all  this 
persisted  in  after  being  warned  by  messengers  sent  from 
her  Majesty's  own  person.  Will  any  man  be  so  simple 
as  to  take  this  to  be  less  than  treason  ?  But,  my  Lord, 
doubting  that  too  much  variety  of  matter  may  occasion 
forgetfulness,  I  will  only  trouble  your  Lordship's  remem- 
brance with  this  point,  rightly  comparing  this  rebellion 
of  my  Lord  of  Essex  to  the  Duke  of  Guise's,  that  came 
upon  the  barricadoes  at  Paris  in  his  doublet  and  hose, 
attended  upon  but  with  eight  gentlemen ;  but  his  con- 


ESSEX   CONDEMNED   TO  DEATH.  145 

fidence  in  the  city  was  even  such  as   my  Lord's  was  ;  VI.  12. 
and  when  he  had  delivered  himself  so  far  into  the  shal- 
low of  his  own  conceit,  and  could  not  accomplish  what    Feb  ig 
he  expected,  the  King  taking  arms  against  him,  he  was 
glad  to  yield  himself,  thinking  to  color  his  pretexts  and 
his  practices  by  alleging  the   occasion  thereof  to  be  a 
private  quarrel." 

Defence   there  is  none :   the  peers  condemn  him  to 
death. 

13.  After  trial  and  condemnation,  when  the  Garter  is  March, 
plucked  from  nis  knee  and  the  George  from  his  breast, 
the  Earl's  pride  and  courage  give  way.  He  closes  a 
turbulent  and  licentious  life  by  confessing  against  his 
companions,  still  untried,  more  than  the  law-officers  of 
the  Crown  could  have  proved  against  them ;  and,  despi- 
cable to  relate,  most  of  all  against  the  two  men  who  have 
been  his  closest  associates,  —  Blount  and  Cuffe.  His 
confessions  in  the  face  of  death  deprive  these  prisoners 
of  the  last  faint  hope  of  grace.  They  go,  with  Meyrick 
and  Danvers,  to  the  gallows  or  to  the  block.  But  the 
anger  of  the  Queen  being  stayed,  the  rest  of  the  gang 
—  Catesby,  Tresham,  Grant,  Winter,  Bayiiham,  and 
their  tribe  —  escape,  some  with  imprisonment,  some 
with  mulct,  for  future  villanies.  At  the  end  of  twelve 
or  fifteen  weeks  the  last  of  the  conspirators  leaves  the 
Tower. 

13.  Council  Reg.,  Feb.  24,  1602;  Jardine's  "Criminal  Trials,"  i.  366-372; 
State  Trials,  i.  1412,  1414. 

7  j 


146  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VI.  14.       14.  Their  fines  reward  service  for  which  no  other  sal- 
aries are  paid.     The  Queen,  who  in  the  fictions  of  biog- 
1601 '    raphers  and  historians  is  forever  starving  Bacon  for  the 

Aug.  6. 

good  of  his  soul,  now  makes  over  to  him,  in  actual  fact, 
a  considerable  share  of  Catesby's  fine.  The  manner  of 
this  grant  of  twelve  hundred  pounds  is  not  less  gracious 
than  the  gift  itself.  It  is  not  made  in  the  usual  way, 
from  the  Lord  Treasurer's  office,  but  as  a  public  act  of 
the  Privy  Council  and  the  Queen. 

A  council  meets  at  Greenwich  Palace,  Egerton  in  the 
chair.  Around  him  sit  Lord  Buckhurst,  the  delightful 
poet ;  Nottingham,  the  great  commander ;  the  Earls  of 
Shrewsbury  and  Worcester ;  Knollys,  Fortescue,  and 
Cecil.  These  councillors  draft  a  letter  to  Coke,  which 
stands  among  the  many  interesting  letters  in  the  Privy 
Council  register :  — 


A  LETTER  TO  EDWARD  COKE,  ESQ.,  HER  MAJESTY'S 
ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 

Aug.  6,  1601. 

Forasmuch  as  her  Majesty  is  pleased  to  bestow  particu- 
lar reward  upon  divers  of  her  servants,  to  be  taken  out 
of  such  fines  as  have  grown  unto  her  by  the  offences  of 
several  persons,  we  have  thought  good  to  let  you  know 
particularly  who  they  be  that  are  at  this  time  to  receive 
several  portions  in  that  kind,  to  the  intent  that  you  may 
cause  some  such  assurances  to  be  passed  over,  as  the 

14.  Council  Reg.,  Aug.  6,  1601. 


AWARDS   FROM  REBELS'    FORFEITS.  147 

person  may  be  assured  to  receive  those  portions  as  are  VI.  14. 
allotted  to  them  according  to  her  Majesty's  gracious  pleas- 
ure,  in  this  sort  following.  When  there  is  an  assurance 
passed  to  her  Majesty's  use  of  certain  lands,  for  the  pay- 
ment of  two  thousand  at  several  days  by  Francis  Tresham, 
her  Majesty  is  pleased  that  Mr.  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower 
shall  receive  the  sum  of  a  thousand  five  hundred  pounds, 
assigned  him  out  of  that ;  the  other  five  hundred  remain- 
ing to  be  disposed  at  her  Majesty's  pleasure.  Next,  you 
shall  understand  that  she  is  likewise  pleased  to  divide 
the  fine  of  Mr.  Catesby  between  Mr.  Francis  Bacon,  Sir 
Arthur  Gorges,  and  Captain  Carpenter,  at  Ostend,  in  this 
sort  following,  for  which  you  are  likewise  to  prepare  some 
such  assurance  to  be  passed  from  the  Queen  as  the  person 
may  receive  those  sums,  every  one  pro  rata,  out  of  every 
portion  as  it  is  assigned  to  be  paid  at  several  times, 
namely,  to  Mr.  Bacon  the  sum  of  a  thousand  two  hun- 
dred pounds ;  to  Sir  Arthur  Gorges  a  thousand  two 
hundred  pounds ;  and  to  Captain  Carpenter  the  rest ; 
for  doing  whereof  these  presents  shall  be  your  war- 
rant. 

THOMAS  EGERTON. 

BUCKHURST. 

NOTTINGHAM. 

SHREWSBURY. 

WORCESTER. 

KNOLLYS. 

ROBERT  CECIL. 

JOHN  FORTESCUE. 


148  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VI.  14.       Fancy  Coke's  delight  in  passing  an  assurance  for  twelve 

hundred  pounds  to  Francis  Bacon  ! 
1601. 
Aug. 

15.  One  actor  in  the  drama  which  has  shaken  London 
slips  mysteriously  from  public   view.      Flung  into   the 
Tower  with  Essex  and  Danvers,  as  of  equal  guilt,  Lord 
Monteagle  is  neither  put  with  them  on  trial  for  his  life, 
nor,  in  the  various  public  investigations,  are  the  damning 
facts  of  his  having  sent  for  Augustine  Phillips  and  of 
having  paid  the  Globe  comedians  to  play  the  deposition 
of  Richard  II.  on  the  very  eve  of  the  rising,  allowed  to 
escape  Coke's  lips  in  a  public  court.     That  Phillips  was 
sent  for  to  Essex  House,  and  was  there  paid  money  to 
change  the  play  at  the  Blackfriars  theatre,  are  facts  too 
grave  for  the  prosecution  to  conceal ;  but  when  Coke  rose, 
with  the  comedian's  evidence  in  his  hand,  he  dropped  the 
name  of  Lord  Monteagle  from  the  sworn  depositions,  in- 

oot  24.    sorting  that  of  Meyrick  in  its  place  !     Meyrick  is  hanged, 
Monteagle  only  fined. 

Cecil  must  have  his  reasons  for  this  strange  suppres- 
sion, this  cruel  substitution :  reasons  which  become 
clear  from  Monteagle's  share  in  the  more  terrible  drama 
of  the  Powder  Plot. 

16.  Lord    Campbell   writes,    and    many    others   have 
written,  as  though  it  would  have  been  right  for  Bacon 
to  have   shirked  his  part  in  this   great  act  of  justice. 

15.  Phillips's  Examination,  Feb.  18, 1601,  S.  P.  0.;  State  Trials,  i.  1445. 

16.  Campbell's  "Lives  of  the  Chancellors,"  iii.  37,  89. 


HIS   PAET   AGAINST   ESSEX.  149 

Yet  this  can  hardly  be  his  serious  meaning.      To  put  VI.  16. 
Bacon   in   the   wrong,   the   objector  must  prove   Essex 
to  have  been  acting  in  his  right.     This,  it  may  be  safely     Aug 
asserted,  they  can  never  do.     If  all  writers  must  agree 
that  England  was  justified  in  crushing  with  swift,  stern 
hand   this    peculiarly   hideous   and   unnatural   plot,   by 
what  path  of  reasoning  can   we   come  to  a  conclusion 
that  one  of  the  Queen's  Counsellors,  called  to  his  duty 
by  the  Crown  was  not  right  ? 

In  Bacon's  place,  we  must  assume  that  Lord  Camp- 
bell would  have  done  his  duty  as  Bacon  did.  There 
is  no  second  course  for  honest  men.  Bring  the  case 
down.  Lord  Campbell  has  had  many  clients  :  men  who 
have  paid  him  fees  far  larger  than  the  patch  of  meadow 
tossed  to  Bacon  by  the  Earl.  Imagine  events  arming 
the  papal  powers  once  more  against  England ;  hostile 
fleets  off  the  coast ;  O'Donnel  or  M'Mahon  at  the  head 
of  a  successful  host  in  Connaught ;  Zouaves  swarming 
in  Cork  ;  our  colonies  menaced  with  fire  and  sword  ; 
a  gang  of  ruffians,  spawn  of  the  stews  and  prisons, 
abroad  in  London ;  the  Queen's  cousin  of  Hanover  plot- 
ting with  all  those  rebels  and  fanatics  against  her  crown 
and  life  ;  a  foreign  league  resolving  to  put  down  our 
free  constitution  and  our  Protestant  faith,  —  imagine,  un- 
der all  these  circumstances  of  alarm,  one  of  Lord  Camp- 
bell's former  clients,  a  man  for  whose  personal  character 
he  felt  no  respect  and  whose  political  conduct  he  held 
in  abhorrence,  joining  with  John  Mitchell,  Dr.  Cullen,  . 
and  the  disbanded  remnants  of  the  Pope's  brigade,  in 


150  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VI.  16.  open  rebellion  against  the  law,  in  rousing  the  dregs  of 
the  city,  in  shedding  innocent  blood  at  Charing  Cross ; 
Aug      would  not  Lord  Campbell,  under  such  provocations,  do 
his  duty  as  a  lawyer  and  as  a  man  ? 

This  was  Bacon's  case.  He  owed  nothing  to  Essex 
that  could  have  tempted  even  a  weak  man  to  take  the 
wrong  side  instead  of  the  right  side.  He  owed  alle- 
giance to  his  country  and  to  truth.  He  was  as  much 
the  Queen's  officer,  armed  with  her  commission,  bound 
to  obey  her  commands,  as  her  Captain  of  the  Guard. 
He  had  no  part  in  the  Earl's  crime,  and  utterly  ab- 
horred his  means,  his  associates,  and  his  ends.  To  have 
done  more  than  he  did  in  the  conduct  of  this  bad  dra- 
ma might  have  heen  noble  and  patriotic  ;  to  have  done 
less  would  have  been  to  act  like  a  weak  girl,  not  like 
a  great  man. 


Oct. 


17.  That  the  bearing  of  Francis  Bacon  throughout 
these  mournful  events  is  just  and  noble  is  the  public 
verdict  of  his  time.  Lord  Campbell  talks  of  his  fall  in 
popularity.  "  For  some  time  after  Essex's  execution 
Bacon  was  looked  upon  with  great  aversion."  But,  in 
truth,  he  never  loses  for  a  day  the  hearts  of  his  coun- 
trymen. Of  this  the  proofs  are  incontestable.  While 
the  spirits  of  men  are  yet  warm  with  remembrance  of 
the  scenes  at  Tyburn  and  on  Tower  Hill,  writs  travel 
down  into  the  shires  for  a  new  Parliament.  Now,  there- 
fore, comes  the  proof  how  far  he  has  fallen.  If  he  be 

17.  Campbell's  "Bacon,"  Hi.  43;  Willis,  "Not  Parl,"  149. 


RETURNED   FOR  IPSWICH  AND   ST.   ALBANS.  151 

thought  of  with  aversion,  as  Lord  Campbell  says,  here  VI.  17. 
are  the  means,  the  opportunities,  and  the  s'cenery  for  a 
condign  revenge.  The  scot  and  lot  men  of  Elizabeth  Oct 
are  not  nice.  A  candidate  cross  to  the  moods  of  squire 
and  freeman  often  finds  himself  burned  in  straw,  pelted 
with  foul  eggs,  or  drummed  by  humorous  rogues  from 
the  county  town.  Do  the  friends  of  Lord  Essex  rise  on 
his  adversaries  ?  Is  the  drum  beaten  against  Raleigh, 
or  the  stone  flung  at  Bacon  ?  Just  the  reverse.  The 
world  has  not  been  with  the  rebellious  Earl ;  and  those 
who  have  struck  down  the  papist  plot  are  foremost  in 
the  ranks  of  the  new  Parliament.  Four  years  ago  Ba- 
con had  been  chosen  to  represent  Ipswich,  and  the  chief 
town  of  Suffolk  again  ratifies  its  choice.  But  his  public 
acts  have  won  for  him  a  second  constituency  in  St.  Al- 
bans.  Such  a  double  return — always  rare  in  the  House 
of  Commons  —  is  the  highest  compliment  that  could 
have  been  paid  to  the  purity  and  popularity  of  his  polit- 
ical life. 


152  FRANCIS  BACON. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE    NEW    REIGN. 

VII.  l.  NOR  is  Bacon's  popularity  a  tide  at  the  ebb.  The 
Queen  dies.  A  King  comes  in  who  knows  not  Joseph, 
i03'  nor  the  principles  of  Joseph.  James  has  secretly  prom- 
ised peace  to  Spain.  A  man  of  weak  nerve  and  small, 
quick  brain,  fond  of  his  ease,  a  friend,  of  dogmatic  con- 
troversies, and  a  stranger  to  religion,  he  can  neither 
tolerate  nor  understand  the  passionate  fervor  of  the 
realm  for  this  foreign  war.  By  war  he  sees  that  he 
may  offend  the  Jesuits  and  the  Pope,  men  who  can 
put  poison  into  his  wine  or  sharpen  against  him  an 
assassin's  knife.  What  are  the  Dutch  to  him,  that  he 
should  offend  for  them  the  masters  of  a  hundred  legions 
and  twenty  secret  fraternities  ?  Why,  these  Dutch  are 
in  arms  against  lawful  kings  !  England,  it  is  true,  has 
undertaken  their  defence,  and,  in  league  with  Henri 
Quatre,  she  has  for  many  years  past  commanded  in 
their  towns  and  camps.  But  the  treaties  of  Elizabeth, 
he  says,  are  not  his  treaties,  nor  can  he  hold  himself 
bound  by  the  acts  of  a  woman  and  a  fool. 

But  the  desertion  of  a  cause  which  every  man  betwe.en 

1.  King's  MSS.  123;  Harl.  MSS.  532. 


UNDER  A  CLOUD  AT  COURT.  163 

the  four  seas  possessing  high  spirit  and  sound  faith  feels  VII.  1. 
to  be  his  own,  is  not  the  act  of  a  day.     A  path  must 

1603. 

be  prepared.  The  eager  spirits  must  be  dispersed  or  MOT 
stunned,  the  great  fighting  men  must  be  crushed  or 
bribed.  Cecil  adopts  this  policy  of  peace,  which  suits 
his  genius  and  secures  to  himself  the  foremost  place. 
Nottingham  is  won  by  a  youthful  bride,  and  Vere  is 
recalled  from  the  Flemish  camp.  A  master-work  of 
political  art  sends  Gray  and  Raleigh  to  the  Tower.  At 
the  same  time  Bacon  is  thrust  aside,  discredited  to  the 
new  sovereign,  his  usual  access  to  the  throne  refused, 
and  his  proffered  services  of  tongue  and  pen  disdained. 

2.  At  court  he  is  under  a  cloud.  The  patron  of  Es-  !604. 
sex,  the  employer  of  Valentine  Thomas,  takes  into  his 
grace  all  those  who  shared  in  the  Earl's  affections  and 
in  his  crime.  Southampton  is  restored  in  blood.  Lady 
Rich  and  the  Countess  of  Northumberland  appear  at 
court.  Lady  Rich's  lover,  Montjoy,  becomes  an  earl. 
Rutland  gets  the  reversion  of  a  royal  park,  Monteagle 
a  grant  of  land.  Among  those  old  partisans  of  Essex, 
who  now  keep  the  gates  of  Whitehall  and  dispose  of 
offices  and  grants,  Bacon  is  undoubtedly  unpopular, — 
less,  however,  for  his  past  speech  against  the  Earl  than 
for  his  present  defence  of  the  dead  Queen.  In  James's 
ear  the  name  of  Elizabeth  is  rank  ;  on  Bacon's  tongue 

2.  Grant  Book  of  James  the  First,  2,  3,  S.  P.  0.;  Doquets  of  James  the  First, 
Nov.  13,  1604,  S.  P.  0.;  Warrant  Book  of  James  the  First,  4,  S.  P.  0.;  In  feli- 
cem  memoriam  Elizabeths,  Bacon's  Works,  Ti.  283;  Willis,  Not.  Parl.,  160. 

7* 


154  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VII.  2.  and  pen  her  virtues  live  and  her  glories  speak.  When 
no  man  but  himself  dares  breath  her  name  in  the  court 
Peb  of  her  successor,  he  composes  that  magnificent  prose 
elegy,  In  felicem  Memoriam  Elizabeths,  which  he  him- 
self esteems  the  most  precious  of  all  his  works.  The 
cloud  is  at  Whitehall  or  at  Hampton  Court,  not  at 
Ipswich  or  St.  Albans.  To  the  country  his  name  is 
dear  as  ever.  When  writs  go  out  for  the  first  Parlia- 
ment of  the  new  reign  (one  purpose  of  which  is  to 
restore  the  friends  of  Devereux  in  estate  and  blood), 
though  the  King  and  court  bear  hard  against  him,  Ips- 
wich and  St.  Albans  send  him  to  London  once  again 
by  a  double  return.  Nor  is  this  all.  So  soon  as  the 
burgesses  meet  in  Westminster,  he  becomes  again,  what 
he  has  been  before  in  every  session  for  twenty  years, 
their  ckief.  Some  go  so  far  as  to  use  his  name  for 
Speaker  of  the  House ;  a  fact  unknown  to  Lord  Camp- 
bell ;  yet  worth  a  word  in  reference  to  the  report  of 
his  lying  at  that  very  moment  under  public  ban. 

MM.  27.  3.  By  ancient  usage  the  Crown  appointed  the  Speaker 
to  be  chosen  by  the  House.  A  leave  to  elect  came  down, 
weighted  with  a  particular  recommendation  ;  and,  like 
a  dean  and  chapter  in  the  election  of  a  bishop,  the 
squires  and  burgesses  were  expected  to  adopt  the  royal 
choice.  A  time  has  now  come  for  trying  what  force 
remains  in  these  feudal  forms.  Some  members  think 

3.  Com.  Jour.,i.  141;  Bacon's  Essays,  No.  3;  Bacon's  Speech  on  the  Natural- 
ization of  the  Scots,  State  Trials,  ii.  575. 


SERVICE   ON  COMMITTEES.  155 

this  leave  to  elect  a  Speaker  should  be  taken  in  its  open  VII.  3. 
sense :  that  the  House  should  choose  it  officers,  causing 

1604 

these  old  pretensions  of  the  Crown  to  cease.  When,  there-  Mar  27 
fore,  the  court  proposes  Sir  Edward  Phellippes,  a  buzz 
and  hum  of  opposition  rises.  Why  not  have  a  Speaker 
of  their  own  ?  Hastings,  Neville,  Bacon,  each  is  named. 
Hastings  is  a  Puritan,  Neville  an  opponent  of  the  court. 
That  each  of  these  men  should  be  deemed  fit  instruments 
of  opposition  to  the  Crown  is  susceptible  of  easy  ex- 
planation. But  Bacon  is  neither  a  Puritan  nor  an  ene- 
my of  the  court.  He  differs  from  the  Puritans  on  some 
of  their  principles,  particularly  on  their  intolerance  for 
errors  of  faith ;  and  he  supports  the  King  against  many 
of  their  most  obstinate  prejudices,  particularly  their 
repugnance  to  a  union  with  the  Scots.  Yet  the  gen- 
tlemen who  live  with  him  and  serve  with  him,  who 
dine  at  the  same  tables,  laugh  over  the  same  jests,  and 
sometimes,  it  is  likely,  suffer  from  his  wit,  believe  he 
may  be  played,  in  a  good  cause,  even  against  the  King. 
These  gentlemen  have  not  discovered  that  Bacon  is  a 
corrupt  and  obsequious  rogue. 

4.  If  the  House  of  Commons,  not  yet  strong  enough  April. 
to  give  battle  to  the  Crown  on  such  a  field  as  the  choice 
of  Speaker,  accepts  the  nomination  of  Phellippes,  it  puts 
Bacon  forward  as  its  man  of  confidence,  electing  him  on 
the  Standing  Committee  of  Privileges,  on  the  Committee 
of  Grievances,  of  which  he  is  named  reporter,  on  the 

4.  Com.  Jour.,  i.  142-253;  Lords'  Jour.,  ii.  206,  309. 


156  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  4.  Committee  for  Conference  on  the  Restraint  of  Speech, 

on  the  Committee  for  Union  with  Scotland;  in  all,  on 

16°4'    twenty-nine   committees.      All   through   the   session   he 

April. 

speaks  with  a  boldness,  an  ability,  a  frequency  unri- 
valled in  the  House  of  Commons  before  his  day  or  since. 
The  topics  are  great  and  various :  abuses  in  the  taverns, 
the  laws  against  witchcraft,  the  license  of  purveyors,  the 
election  of  members,  the  sin  of  adultery,  the  increase  of 
drunkenness,  the  sale  of  Crown  offices  and  lands.  Two 
topics  stand  out  from  the  rest  with  almost  solid  bright- 
ness of  historical  outline.  These  are  the  Grievances 
and  the  Union. 

On  the  first  he  has  the  disadvantage  of  differing  from 
the  Crown  ;  on  the  second  from  a  majority  of  those 
country  gentlemen  with  whom  he  usually  speaks  and 
votes.  James  will  not  hear  of  the  List  of  Grievances, 
nor  will  the  burgesses  vote  his  Bill  of  Union  with  the 
Scots.  Each  side  has  its  personal  feeling  and  its  nar- 
row view.  With  a  deeper  wisdom  and  a  larger  patriot- 
ism, Bacon,  while  he  sees  with  the  King  that  these  claims 
to  suspend  the  penal  laws,  to  grant  private  monopolies, 
to  command  personal  service,  to  sign  away  heiresses  in 
marriage,  to  supply  his  kitchen  from  the  poulterer's  bas- 
ket and  his  cellars  from  the  vintner's  store  at  his  own 
price,  are  each  and  all  incontestably  historical,  founded 
in  custom  older  in  date  than  the  oldest  statute  in  the 
book,  sees  also,  with  the  complaining  citizen  or  squire, 
that  time,  by  its  slow  but  devouring  sap,  has  hollowed 
the  ground  on  which  these  regal  privileges  stand,  so  that 


INTRODUCES   THE   BILL   OF   UNION.  157 

they  have  no  longer  a  safe  foundation  on  which  to  rest,  VII.  4. 

and  seeks  to  improve  the  old  ways  before  improvement 

1604 

is  too  late.     But  James  is  deaf.     To  take  from  him  the 

April 

right  to  reward  a  barber  with  a  wine  patent,  to  compel 
the  young  noble  to  hold  his  reins  or  feed  his  dogs,  to 
match  his  favorites  of  the  bedchamber  with  the  daugh- 
ters of  English  earls,  to  fetch  in  ale  from  Blackfriars 
and  fish  from  Billingsgate  wharf,  to  grant  leave  to  his 
groom,  or  the  darling  of  his  groom,  to  vend  pardons 
for  rape  and  arson,  burglary  and  murder,  would,  in  his 
opinion,  be  to  rob  him  of  the  most  princely  attributes  of 
his  high  rank. 

5.  Some  among  the  Commons  are  not  less  weak  than 
James.  When  they  see  him  break  his  word,  turn  his 
back  on  the  List  of  Grievances,  nip  in  the  flower  their 
hopes  of  a  Church  reform,  begin  a  secret  correspond- 
ence with  the  Cardinal  Archduke  and  with  the  Pope, 
they  set  themselves  to  oppose  his  policy  even  in  the 
few  particulars  on  which  his  policy  is  just  and  sound. 
In  a  union  with  the  Scots  Bacon  finds  a  measure  of 
defence  against  Spain.  A  dull  squire  sees  in  it  only  an 
opening  for  the  rush  into  London  of  savages  with  red 
beards,  bare  legs,  and  scurvy  tongues. 

Waiving  his  own  wrongs  for  the  public  good,  Bacon 
draws  for  the  King  the  draft  of  a  Bill  of  Union,  which  he 
introduces  into  the  House  of  Commons  in  a  splendid 

5.  Abstract  by  Bacon  of  Objections  in  the  House  of  Commons,  April  25, 1604, 
S.  P.  0.;  Speech  on  the  Union,  April  25, 1604,  S.  P.  0. 


158  FRANCIS  BACON. 

vn.  5.  speech,  opening  to  the  view  of  knight  and  squire  a  politi- 
cal scene,  in  which  he  pictures  to  their  minds  the  con- 
tending nationalities  and  hostile  creeds  of  Europe  ;  striv- 
ing, by  his  bold,  persuasive  eloquence,  to  lure  them  into 
pondering  less  on  the  ancient  feud  of  Saxon  and  Scot, 
more  on  the  permanent  safety  of  the  English  faith  and 
power.  With  all  the  lights  of  fancy,  all  the  subtleties  of 
logic,  he  meets  on  one  side  the  obstinacy  of  his  col- 
leagues, on  the  other  side  the  perverseness  of  his  prince. 
Each,  however,  holds  to  his  own.  The  Grievances  are 
not  heard,  the  Bill  of  Union  does  not  pass. 

.  July.  6.  While  Bacon  is  making  these  splendid  displays  of 
political  wisdom  and  personal  independence  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  Lord  Campbell  fancies  him  slinking  and 
skulking  under  public  odium ! 

Lord  Campbell  takes  everything  on  trust.  When 
Bacon  got  his  knighthood,  Lord  Campbell  says  he  was 
"  infinitely  gratified  by  being  permitted  to  kneel  down 
with  three  hundred  others."  Now,  Bacon's  letters  to 
Cecil  on  the  knighthood  are  not  only  in  print,  but  are 
known  to  every  one  who  reads.  In  place  of  being  in- 
finitely gratified,  Bacon  protests  against  the  shame  of 
being  compelled  to  kneel  down  with  Peter  and  John.  So 
again  with  his  marriage  to  Alice  Barnham.  Lord  Camp- 
bell makes  merry  over  his  mercenary  love  and  his  match 
of  convenience.  Yet  from  his  own  text,  and  from  the 
pages  of  Montagu,  it  is  certain  that  he  knows  nothing 

6.  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Chancellors,  iii.  49. 


COURTS  ALICE   BARNHAM.  159 

whatever  of  this  love  or  of  this  match  ;  neither  who  Alice  VH  6. 
Barnham  was,  nor  the  circumstances   of  her   parents  : 

1604. 

neither  when  she  became  Bacon's  wife,  nor  the  amount     Jnl 
of  jointure  which  she  brought  home  to  her  lord.     He 
imagines  that  Alice  became  Lady  Bacon  in  1603,  shortly 
after  July  3d.     He  says  she  was  rich. 

In  all  that  relates  to  Alice  Barnham  the  writers  of 
Bacon's  life  have  been  as  much  at  fault  as  though  she 
had  been  first  the  love  and  then  the  wife  of  Ward  the 
Rover  or  Steer  the  Leveller,  in  place  of  being,  as  she  was, 
lady  to  a  man  who  framed  the  New  Philosophy  and  held 
the  Great  Seal.  Yet  some  of  the  facts  about  her  birth, 
the  associations  of  her  early  years,  the  members  of  her 
family,  the  circumstances  of  her  love,  courtship,  marriage, 
and  wedded  life,  may  still  be  recovered  from  the  manu- 
script mounds  of  the  Bodleian,  the  State  Paper  Office,  and 
the  library  of  Westwood  Park. 

7.  More  than  a  year  ago,  in  writing  to  his  cousin  Aug. 
Cecil,  Bacon  mentioned  his  having  found  a  handsome 
maiden  to  his  mind.  She  loved  him  and  he  loved  her. 
But  her  mother,  a  widow  and  again  a  wife,  having  made 
two  good  matches  for  herself,  has  set  her  heart  on  making 
great  alliances  for  her  girls.  In  part  to  please  her,  still 
.more  to  glorify  his  bride,  Bacon  waits  and  toils  that 

7.  Bacon  to  Cecil,  July  3,  1603 ;  Notes  on  the  Pakington  Family  in  Wotton's 
Baronetage,  ed.  by  Kimber  and  Johnson,  i.  180.  Wotton's  account  was  derived 
from  a  MS.  History  of  Sir  John  Pakington  written  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Tomkins,  a 
Prebendary  of  Worcester,  preserved  in  Wotton's  time  at  Westwood  Park.  The 
MS.  is  now  lost. 


160  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  7.  he  may  lay  at  her  feet  a  settled  fortune  and  a  more  splen- 
did name. 
1604 
A  The  family  into  which  —r-  when  he   can  steal  an  hour 

from  the  courts  of  law  and  the  pursuits  of  science  —  he 
goes  a-courting,  and  in  which  he  is  now  an  accepted  lover, 
consists  of  four  girls,  their  pretty  mother,  and  a  bold, 
handsome,  heady  step- father  of  fifty-six,  —  a  group  of 
persons  notable  from  their  private  stories,  and  of  romantic 
interest  from  their  loves  and  feuds  with  the  philosopher, 
and  from  the  part  they  must  have  had  in  shaping  his 
views  of  the  felicities  and  infelicities  of  domestic  life. 

8.  The  four  young  girls  are  the  orphan  daughters  of 
Benedict  Barnham,  merchant  of  Cheapside  and  alder- 
man of  his  ward ;  an  honest  fellow,  who  gave  his  wife 
a  good  lift  in  the  world,  and  left  his  children  to  take 
their  chance  of  rising  among  men,  who,  with  all  their 
sins,  are  never  blind  to  the  merits  of  women  blessed 
with  youth,  loveliness,  and  wealth.  Alice  is  the  first 
to  fall  in  love ;  but  the  three  hoydens  who  now  romp 
around  her,  and  perhaps  get  many  a  hug  and  kiss  from 
her  famous  lover,  will  soon  be  in  their  turns  followed 
for  their  bright  eyes  and  brighter  gold.  Elizabeth  will 
marry  Mervin  Touchet,  Earl  of  Castlehaven,  that  mis- 
erable wretch  who,  when  his  first  young  wife,  the  hoyden 
of  to-day,  is  in  her  grave,  will  expiate  on  the  block  the 
foulest  crime  ever  charged  against  an  English  peer. 

8.  Wotton,  i.  180-186;  Nash's  History  of  Worcestershire,!.  352;  Collins's 
Peerage,  art  "  Audley." 


SIR  JOHN  PAKINGTON.  161 

The  two  little  things  now  playing  at  Alice's  knee  will   VII.  8. 
become,  in  due  time,  Lady  Constable  and  Lady  Soames. 

1604. 
Aug. 

The  mother  of  these  girls  was  a  daughter  of  Hum- 
phrey Smith,  of  Cheapside,  silkman  to  the  Queen.  Eager, 
lovely,  and  aspiring,  she  won  the  alderman  of  her  ward, 
—  an  admirable  city  match  ;  but  she  meant  and  means 
to  rise  yet  higher  in  the  world,  and  heaven  has  given 
her  the  strength  to  fight  her  way.  Of  the  four  hus- 
bands whom  she  has  made,  or  has  still  to  make,  the 
happiest  of  their  sex,  each  is  to  be  in  his  turn  a  loftier 
one  than  the  last.  She  flas  buried  a  citizen.  She  will, 
in  turn,  bury  her  knight.  She  will  then  marry  a  baron? 
and,  on  his  death,  an  earl.  Barnham  was  her  early 
choice.  When  he  left  her  with  the  four  girls  and  a 
great  estate,  Sir  John  Pakington,  of  Hampton  Lovet, 
ancestor  of  that  Worcestershire  baronet  who  is  said  to 
have  sat  to  Addison  for  the  portrait  of  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley,  proffered  to  console  her  with  his  hearty  af- 
fection and  his  good  old  name.  The  widow  was  not 
perverse.  If  she  wept  for  the  dear  alderman  of  Cheap- 
side,  it  was  in  a  coach  emblazoned  with  the  mullets 
and  wheat-sheafs,  and  with  a  handsome  and  jovial  knight 
at  her  side. 

9.  Sir  John  has  been  a  father  to  the  four  girls ;  for 

9.  Council  Reg.,  Aug.  24,  1600,  June  6,  Oct.  13,  1601;  Wotton,  i.  180;  The 
Camden  Society's  Miscellany,  iv.  60.  There  is  a  portrait  of  Sir  John  at  West- 
wood  Park.  My  impressions  of  him  are  mainly  derived  from  a  multitude  of 

K 


162  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  9.  if  rough  and  ready,  apt  to  quarrel,  and  quick  to  strike, 
he  has  a  gentle  and  manly  heart.     A  gentleman  with  due 

1fiQ4 

A  '  pride  in  his  long  line  and  his  broad  lands,  in  Kis  length 
of  leg  and  width  of  chest,  he  is  known  at  Christchurch 
and  on  Richmond-green  as  Lusty  Pakiugton ;  and  the 
good  old  Queen,  who  liked  to  see  a  man  a  Man,  made 
him,  for  his  brave  looks,  a  Knight  of  the  Bath.  A  great 
swimmer,  an  adroit  swordsman,  few  who  can  help  it 
ever  care  to  wait  the  shock  of  his  hasty  temper  or  his 
vigorous  thrust.  The  great  man  of  his  country-side, 
he  sends  his  buck  for  the  judges'  table  at  assizes,  and 
has  his  name  put  first  on  evfry  commission  from  the 
Crown,  whether  the  shire  is  called  to  raise  forces  against 
Spain,  build  light-houses  in  the  Bristol  Channel,  or  pro- 
vide for  the  wants  of  sick  and  disabled  troops  ;  but  when 
orders  from  the  Crown  oppose  his  own  particular  humor, 
as  they  sometimes  do,  he  quietly  puts  them  in  the  fire. 
The  Privy  Council  has  to  be  rather  plain  and  rough 
with  the  jovial  knight.  Once  he  laid  a  wager  to  swim 
against  three  stout  gallants  from  Westminster  to  Lon- 
don-bridge ;  but  the  Queen  forbade  the  match,  lest  some 
of  the  fools  should  get  drowned  He  has  a  passion  for 
building  and  digging  on  a  princely  scale.  He  buys  a 
whole  forest  of  trees  for  his  salt-pits  and  for  the  great 
house  which  he  is  building  at  "Westwood  Park,  and  he 
sinks  a  great  farm  of  a  hundred  acres  under  water 

private  papers  preserved  at  Westwood,  free  access  to  which  I  owe  to  the  oblig- 
ing courtesies  of  the  Right  Hon.  Sir  John  Pakington,  Bart.,  his  descendant  and 
successor. 


SIR   JOHN   PAKINGTON.  163 

that  he  may  have  room  to  swim  and  fish.  Debt  catches  VII.  9. 
the  generous  spendthrift  in  its  claws ;  and  that  which 
could  not  force  him  into  meanness,  lures  him,  at  the  Aug> 
age  of  fifty,  into  love.  When  maddened  by  duns,  he 
swore  to  be  free  of  such  rogues,  even  if  he  had  to  give 
up  London,  and  live  on  bread  and  verjuice.  News  that 
Sir  John  was  going  to  forsake  the  town,  to  sell  horses 
and  dogs,  and,  for  the  time  to  come,  live  on  his  own 
estate,  shoot  in  the  woods  round  Hampton  Lovet,  and 
stick  to  the  sessions  of  Worcester,  as  his  father  and 
grandfather  had  done  before  him,  soon  got  wing ;  when 
sixty  stout  gentlemen  and  yeomen  of  the  shire,  his 
friends  and  tenants,  seated  in  their  own  saddles,  pricked 
up  to  London,  and  waited  for  him  at  the  palace-gates 
while  he  went  in  to  bid  the  Queen  adieu.  Sorry  to  miss 
so  fine  a  gentleman  from  her  court,  Elizabeth  gave  him 
an  estate  in  Suffolk,  worth  from  eight  to  nine  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  of  traitor's  land.  Off  he  spurred  to 
take  possession ;  but,  on  gaining  the  door  of  his  new 
house,  he  found  there  a  mourning  lady  with  her  chil- 
dren in  despair.  In  place  of  kicking  them  out  into 
the  street,  he  ran  away  himself,  nor  ever  rested  in  his 
bed  till  he  got  the  Queen  to  take  back  her  gift  and 
bestow  it  on  the  weeping  lady  and  her  little  brood. 
When  a  good  friend  in  the  city  whispered  in  his  ear 
the  name  of  widow  Barnham,  the  great  affectionate  fel- 
low, wanting  to  dig  and  build,  and  having  no  objection 
to  four  pretty  girls  to  romp  with  him  and  love  him,  as 
they  were  sure  to  do,  dashed  into  Cheapside,  told  his 


164  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  9.   bashful  little  tale,  and  the  young  widow,  wooed  for  the 

second  time  in  her  life,  said  Yes. 
1604. 
Aug. 

10.  A  brood  of  Pakingtons  has  joined  the  brood  of 
Barnhams,  —  Mary,  Ann,  and  John  their  names.  Mary 
will  live  to  become  Lady  Brook ;  Ann  first  to  become 
Lady  Ferrars,  then  Countess  of  Chesterfield  ;  Jack  will 
be  the  first  baronet  of  his  line ;  and  his  son,  Jack  also, 
will  be  the  famous  cavalier  who  sacrificed  so  much  for 
Charles  the  First,  and  who  married  Lady  Dorothy,  the 
friend  of  Hammond,  and  the  reputed  author  of  "  The 
Whole  Duty  of  Man." 

The  Barnhams  and  Pakingtons  keep  house  together  ; 
in  summer-time  at  Hampton  Lovet,  among  the  oaks  and 
apple-trees  ;  in  term  and  sessions,  when  the  world  rides 
up  to  town,  they  hire  a  lodging  in  the  Strand,  over 
against  the  door  of  the  Savoy  church.  Their  home  is  in 
Worcestershire,  —  a  big  stone  house,  in  a  wooded  dell, 
close  by  Hampton-brook,  and  at  the  foot  of  Hornsgrove- 
hill,  —  a  pile  with  flanking  wings,  a  trim  parterre  in  front, 
and  five  huge  lanterns  on  the  roof,  from  which  nothing 
can  be  seen  save  the  square,  plain  tower  of  the  village 
church,  the  clasping  zone  of  wood,  and  now  and  then  a 
curl  of  ascending  smoke  from  the  Droitwich  salt-pans. 
Near  a  mile  from  Hampton  Lovet  lie  the  ruins  of  an 
ancient  abbey,  which  may  possibly  have  been  the  scene 

10.  I  derive  these  details  from  the  Westwood  MSS.,  the  stained  glasses  of 
Hampton  Lovet  church,  and  personal  inspection  of  the  localities,  with  the  val- 
uable aid  of  Sir  John  and  Lady  Pakington. 


HAMPTON   LOVET.  165 

of  Sir  Roger's  ghost.  A  chain  of  ponds,  alive  with  fish  VII.  10. 
and  fed  by  natural  springs,  drips  past  the  ruin,  and  be- 
yond these  slants  a  bright  green  grassy  upland,  bare  of  Au<r 
wood,  from  the  top  of  which,  a  level  table-land,  the  eye 
sweeps  lovingly  over  wood  and  water,  hill  and  hamlet 
and  orchard ;  near  it  the  village  spires  of  Ombersley  and 
Hampton ;  far  away  the  cathedral  towers  of  Worcester ; 
and  in  the  distance,  over  leagues  of  country,  powdered  in 
May  with  the  pink  and  white  of  innumerable  apple-trees, 
in  autumn  warm  with  the  ruddy  glow  of  the  ploughed 
red  land,  the  bold  purple  ridge  of  the  Malvern  hills.  On 
this  plateau,  high  above  the  low-lying  woods,  Sir  John 
has  begun  to  build  a  big  house  and  dig  a  big  lake,  —  a 
house  of  rough  red  brick,  with  a  grand  hall  and  a  state- 
room above  it,  panelled,  carved,  and  tapestried,  —  a  house 
like  himself,  thoroughly  genuine  and  English,  in  which 
he  is  to  die,  and  his  descendants  are  to  live.  His  new 
lake,  close  by  his  house,  is  the  wonder  and  bugbear  of 
the  shire. 

11.  Between  this  proud  mother  and  this  burly  knight 
the  course  of  Bacon's  love  for  Alice  has  no  great  hope  of 
running  smooth.  Lady  Pakington  adores  great  people  ; 
thinking  more  of  Sir  Francis  Bacon  as  a  friend  and 
favorite  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  than  she  would  have 
thought  of  him  had  he  already  published  the  Great  In- 
stauration.  Lady  Egerton  condescends  to  keep  her  in 

11.  Bacon  to  Egerton,  in  Tanner  MSS.  251,  fol.  38  b;  Doquets,  Aug.  18,  Oct. 
28,  1604,  S.  P.  0. 


166  ,    FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  11.  good  humor  while  the  man  of  genius  waits  and  labors 
for  a  better  time. 

He  has  still  to  wait,  even  for  that  rise  in  his  profession 
which  is  incontestably  his  due.  On  the  death  of  Sir 
William  Peryam,  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer,  and  the 
third  husband  of  his  sister,  Elizabeth  Bacon,  Fleming  be- 
comes Chief  Baron,  yet  the  Solicitorship,  vacant  once 
more,  is  given  over  his  head  to  Sir  John  Doderidge,  ser- 
geant of  the  coif. 

1605.  12.  A  brief  reference  in  the  charge  against  William 
NOT-  Talbot,  a  phrase  here  and  there  in  his  Essays,  have  told 
the  world  what  Bacon  thought  of  the  Powder  Plot.  It 
has  not  been  known  that  he  had  any  part,  slight  or  seri- 
ous, in  repressing  this  foul  conspiracy,  the  natural  sequel 
of  the  Essex  plot. 

The  new  facts  are  found  in  an  unpublished  letter  from 
Bacon  to  Cecil. 

NOT.  s.  The  crime  of  Essex,  the  royal  patronage  of  the  con- 
spirators, have  borne  their  fruit  in  the  Westminster  mine. 
It  is  the  eighth  of  November,  four  days  after  the  strange 
discovery  made  by  Lord  Monteagle.  Fawkes  is  in  the 
Tower.  Catesby,  Percy,  Christopher  and  John  Wright 
are  riding  through  the  midland  shires,  flinging  away 
cloaks  and  scarfs,  the  country  at  their  heels.  The  fight 
is  not  yet  won.  Jesuits  peer  from  the  slums  of  White- 
friars,  and  many  who  have  come  to  town  for  the  fifth  of 

12.  Bacon  to  Cecil,  Nov.  8,  1605,  S.  P.  0.;  Examination  of  John  Drake,  Nov. 
8, 1605,  S.  P.  0. 


LETTER   TO   CECIL.  167 

November   still  lurk   among   the   sheds  of  Drury-lane.  VII.  12. 
True  citizens  keep  watch  and  ward,  lest,  maddened  by 
defeat,  some  desperate  villain  should  commit  midnight    Nov.  8. 
murder  or  scatter  midnight  fire. 

John  Drake,  serving-man  to  Reynolds,  a  gentleman 
living  in  pleasant  Holborn,  hears  a  fellow  named  Beard 
declare  that  the  plot  was  a  brave  plot,  and  that  he,  for 
one,  regrets  it  has  failed.  Drake  runs  to  his  master,  and 
Reynolds  repeats  to  the  Principal  of  Staple  Inn  the  sus- 
picious words  his  servant  has  overheard.  The  Principal 
sees  that  here  is  no  case  for  a  city  Dogberry, — Beard  must 
be  a  Papist,  may  be  a  plotter.  Away  he  posts  with  the 
ancients  of  his  Inn  to  Bacon's  rooms  in  Gray's  Inn 
Square.  The  words  are  bad,  but  general,  —  may  mean 
little,  may  mean  much.  The  knave  should  certainly  be 
caught  and  questioned.  Bacon  sends  the  examination 
of  Drake  to  Cecil,  with  the  following  note  :  — 

BACON  TO  CECIL. 

Nov.  8, 1605. 
IT  MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  LORDSHIP, — 

I  send  an  examination  of  one  who  was  brought  to 
me  by  the  principal  and  ancients  of  Staple  Inn,  touching 
the  words  of  one  Beard,  suspected  for  a  Papist  and  prac- 
tiser, — being  general  words,  but  bad;  and  I  thought 
not  good  to  neglect  anything  at  such  a  time  ;  so  with 
signification  of  humble  duty,  I  remain,  at  your  Lord- 
ship's honorable  commands,  most  humbly, 

F.  BACON. 


168  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  13.      13.   Even  the  atrocious  plot  of  Fawkes  and  Garnet, 

though  its  success  would  have  been  death  to  him,  as  to 

1606.  .   . 

Jwa      so  many  more,  does  not  sour  Bacon  into  a  persecutor. 

He  classes  their  crime  with  the  massacres  of  Paris  ; 
but  while  the  bigots  find  in  these  monstrous  aberra- 
tions a  plea  for  hanging  and  embowelling  Roman  Cath- 
olics who  have  taken  no  part  in  them,  he  finds,  as  wise 
and  tolerant  men  see  in  them  now,  after  a  lapse  of  two 
hundred  and  sixty  years,  an  argument  against  arming 
any  one  sect  of  men  with  the  persecutor's  sword.  The 
traitor  he  gives  up  to  the  law  ;  the  heretic  is  to  him  a 
brother  who  has  lost  his  way.  In  the  noblest  and  most 
original  of  his  Essays,  penned  in  the  prime  of  his  intel- 
lectual powers,  he  especially  explains  and  defends  this 
principle  of  toleration.  But  the  doctrine  of  his  book 
had  been  previously  exercised  as  a  virtue  in  his  life. 
The  lapse  of  Tobie  Mathews  from  the  English  Church 
»  to  Rome  puts  his  tolerant  philosophy  to  the  proof.  Born 
on  the  steps  of  the  episcopal  bench,  his  grandfather  a 
bishop,  his  father  a  bishop,  four  of  his  uncles  bishops, 
all  his  connections  in  the  Church,  the  fall  of  this  young 
man  makes  a  noise  in  England  loud  as  the  apostasy  of 
Spalatro  makes  in  Rome.  The  Puritans  would  cut  him 
off  branch  and  bole.  "When  he  comes  from  Italy  to 
London,  having  given  up  all  his  old  delights,  cards, 
wenches,  wine,  and  oaths,  some,  who  are  not  themselves 


to  Carleton,  July,  1606,  S.  P.  0.;  Ap.  to  Sainsbury's  Origi- 
nal Papers  relating  to  Rubens,  341,  343;  Bacon's  Essays,  ed.  of  1625,  No.  3; 
Mathews  to  Bacon,  April  14,  July  16,  1616,  Lambeth  MSS.  936. 


HIS   TOLERATION.  169 

saints,  would  fling  him  into  the  Tower  and  leave  him  VII.  13. 
there  to  die,  as  Spalatro,  venturing  into  Rome,  is  -sent 
to  perish  in  the  dungeons  of  St.  Angelo.  James  is  Jan 
bitterly  incensed  against  him,  looking  on  his  fall  as  that 
of  a  column  of  his  church  ;  his  father  drives  him  from 
his  heart  with  a  curse ;  yet,  when  his  whole  kin  spit 
on  him  and  cast  him  forth,  Bacon,  strong  in  his  sym- 
pathy for  a  scholar  and  a  man  who  has  lost  his  way, 
takes  this  outcast  and  regenerate  pervert  to  his  house. 
Though  he  fights  against  his  friend's  new  doctrines, 
he  never  will  consent,  with  the  less  tolerant  world,  to 
hunt  him  down  for  a  change  in  his  speculative  views, 
which  every  eye  can  see  has  made  him  a  better  and  a 
happier  man.  The  philosopher  may  not  be  always  able, 
by  any  sacrifice  of  name  and  credit,  to  shield  this  enthu- 
siast from  the  rage  of  sects,  but  he  comforts  him  when  in 
jail,  procures  leave  for  him  to  return  from  exile,  softens 
towards  him  the  heart  of  his  father,  and  obtains  for  him 
indulgences  which  probably  save  his  life. 

14.  In  the  session  which  meets  after  the  plot  Bacon  Feb. 
plays  a  most  active  and  brilliant  part.  The  whole  world 
has  come  to  town,  —  some  to  see  that  the  King  is  safe, 
some  to  see  the  traitors  hang.  Among  others  have  come 
up  Sir  John  and  Lady  Pakington,  together  with  the 
young  ladies  from  Westwood  Park. 

14.  Carleton  to  Chamberlain,  May  11,  1600,  S.  P.  0.;  Wotton,  i.  184;  Heath's 
Preface  to  Bacon's  Speech  on  the  Jurisdiction  of  the  Marches,  vii.  569;  Dom. 
Papers,  James  I.,  x.  86. 

8 


170  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  14.  Sir  John  has  left  behind  him  for  a  few  weeks  his  brine- 
pits,  his  great  pool,  his  herds  of  deer,  his  new  house  in 
the  wood,  his  petty  squabbles  with  the  neighboring 
squires,  and  penned  himself  and  the  young  ladies  in 
a  lodging  of  the  Strand,  not  only  that  he  may  see  the 
opening  of  parliament  and  hear  the  news,  but  that  he 
may  fight  his  way  through  two  or  three  of  his  ugly 
scrapes.  In  digging  his  huge  pond  in  Westwood  Park, 
he  has  put  under  water  some  part  of  an  old  road,  never 
doubting  his  power  to  do  what  he  saw  good  on  his  own 
estate,  the  more  so  that  he  has  given  a  turn  to  the  road 
more  convenient  for  himself  and  for  every  one  else.  A 
neighbor,  between  whom  and  Sir  John  no  love  is  lost, 
seeing  the  flaw  in  this  easy  mode  of  making  things 
straight,  procures  from  the  Crown  an  order  to  remove 
the  pond  and  restore  the  King's  ancient  highway.  This 
news  he  sends  to  Westwood,  saying,  with  a  politeness 
which  the  hot  old  gentleman  reads  for  insult,  that, 
though  he  has  such  an  order  in  his  hands,  he  shall 
not  use  it  so  long  as  the  knight  shall  be  pleased  to  live 
with  him  on  friendly  terms.  Scorning  to  owe  his  pleas- 
ures to  such  a  fellow,  Sir  John  breaks  down  his  banks, 
and,  the  pool  lying  high,  the  waters  race  and  crash 
through  the  orchards,  strewing  the  fields  with  dead  fish 
for  a  mile  or  more,  and  discoloring  the  Severn  as  far  off 
as  Worcester  for  a  week.  Having  let  out  his  pool,  he 
has  come  to  answer  for  himself,  and  seek  power  to  fill 
it  with  water  and  fish  once  more. 

A  yet  more   serious   quarrel   with    Lord   Zouch   has 


SIR   JOHN    PAKIXGTOX.  171 

helped  to  bring  him  up  to  town.     As  President  of  the  "VE-  14. 

Council  of  Wales  and  the  Welsh  Marches,  Lord  Zouch 

1606. 
has  for  a  long  time  claimed  a  certain  jurisdiction  over     Feb 

the  four  border  shires  of  Gloucester,  Hereford,  Salop, 
and  Worcester ;  a  claim  which  the  shires  deny  and  re- 
sist, with  loud  speeches  from  the  gentry,  met  by  threats 
of  force  on  the  part  of  Zouch,  tumultuous  riding,  sign- 
ing, and  protesting,  ending  for  a  day  in  solemn  appeals 
from  the  four  shires  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and  from 
the  angry  Council  of  Wales  to  the  King.  Sir  Herbert 
Crofts,  Knight  of  the  shire  for  Hereford,  has  the  cause 
against  Zouch  in  hand.  Sir  John,  who  is  Sheriff  of 
Worcester,  but  not  a  Parliament  man,  having  no  tongue 
to  wag,  has  yet  a  passionate  interest  in  the  appeal ;  for 
Lord  Zouch  not  only  claims  a  certain  authority  in  his 
county,  but  shows  no  sense  of  the  respect  due,  even  from 
a  peer,  to  so  great  a  man  as  Sir  John. 

15.  Alice  is  now  near  her  lover,  whom  she  may  spy 
as  he  trots  from  Gray's  Inn  to  Westminster,  or  kmnges 
from  the  house  towards  Chancery-lane.  Bacon  sees 
many  a  rock  ahead.  He  is  still  a  simple  knight,  and 
he  has  the  misery  of  differing  from  Sir  John  on  the 
great  question  of  Lord  Zouch  and  the  shires. 

Sir  John  can  hardly  make  him  out.  Pakington  is  a 
Royalist,  root  and  branch,  one  who  has  lent  money  to  his 
Prince  on  Privy  Seals,  and  who  would  draw  a  sword 

15.  Com..  Jour.,  i.  286,  299;    App.  to  the  Verney  Papers,   ed.  by  John 
Bruce,  281. 


172  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VII.  15.  for  Church  and  King  with  the  ready  zeal  which  made 
his  grandson  famous  among  the  soldiers  of  Charles  the 

1  fiOfi 

Feb  '  First ;  yet  this  young  lawyer,  who  has  spent  his  life  in 
recommending  reforms,  presumes  to  defend  against  him, 
loyal  Sir  John,  the  prerogatives  of  the  Crown !  Wiser 
heads  than  that  of  the  warm  old  Worcestershire  knight 
are  often  at  fault  when  trying  to  explain  to  themselves 
the  relations  of  Bacon  to  the  Puritan  House  of  Com- 
mons and  to  the  episcopal  and  regal  court.  Yet  they 
seem  to  be  easy  of  explanation.  It  is,  indeed,  so  rare 
for  a  man  to  stand  on  good  terms  with  a  hostile  Crown 
and  House  of  Commons,  that  it  is  often  thought  and 
sometimes  found  to  be  impossible.  Winwood  tried  it. 
Strafford  tried  it.  Pym  would  have  tried  it.  But  Win- 
wood  lost  favor  with  the  House  when  he  took  office 
under  the  Crown  ;  lost  favor  at  Court  when  he  leaned 
to  the  Puritan  opinions  of  the  House.  Strafford  and 
Pym  had  each  to  choose  a  side.  Bacon's  position  was 
far  more  lofty,  and  for  years  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  more 
secure.  From  his  height  of  view  and  round  of  sym- 
pathy he  is  unable  to  throw  himself,  tongue  and  pen, 
into  the  exclusive  and  sectarian  lines  of  either  camp. 
His  reconciling  genius  spans  the  dividing  stream  of 
party.  Above  the  foolish  Prince  and  petulent  squires, 
he  sees  his  country;  not  merely  the  England  of  Ban- 
croft, of  the  Hampton  Court  Conference,  of  the  Procla- 
mation against  Papists ;  but  the  England  of  a  thousand 
years,  of  Alfred  and  of  Edward,  of  Cressy  and  of  Cadiz, 
of  Chaucer  and  of  Spenser ;  the  England  of  a  glorious 


HIS   LOFTY  POSITION.  173 

past  and  a   hopeful  future  ;    the   land  which  nurtured  VII.  15. 

Wycliffe  and  Caxton,  which   broke  the  spiritual  bonds 

1606. 
of  Leo,  which   crushed   the   invincible  fleets   of  Spain.      Feb- 

This  country  he  strives  to  arm,  to  free,  to  guide  ;  now 
by  aiding  the  King  in  questions  of  revenue  and  of 
union ;  now  by  aiding  the  House  in  questions  of  reform 
or  war.  In  each  he  is  consistent  first  and  last.  His  first 
votes  in  the  House  were  for  supplies,  his  last  speech  will 
be  for  supplies.  With  no  fear  of  the  controversial  genius 
of  Rome,  he  feels  a  wholesome  dread  of  the  fleets  and 
regiments  of  Spain  ;  those  tracts  by  which  Parsons, 
Schioppius,  and  Bellarmino  sting  the  sleep  from  so  many 
pillows  pass  him  by  ;  but  he  cannot  hear  unmoved  that 
the  same  Paul  who  has  launched  an  interdict  on  Venice 
is  forming  a  Roman  Catholic  League  against  England ; 
that  the  O'Neiles  and  O'Donnels,  driven  out  from  Ireland 
by  Lord  Montjoy,  are  hurrying  home  from  Brussels  and 
Madrid  ;  that  rebels  are  drilling  in  the  wilds  of  Con- 
naught  and  Ulster ;  that  Fajardo  is  manning  his  ships 
in  Cadiz  bay,  and  Brochero  proffering  his  red  hand  to 
brush  away  Virginia  with  steel  and  flame.  Willing  to 
meet  the  men  of  words  with  words,  he  is  not  less  eager 
to  meet  the  men  of  war  with  steel  and  lead,  the  mid- 
night assassin  with  the  chain,  the  gibbet,  and  the  cord. 
Now,  to  starve  the  Crown  is  to  leave  England  weak. 
True,  the  Prince  is  lax,  and  moneys  voted  for  the  mus- 
ters and  the  fleets  may  chance  to  drop  into  the  pouches 
of  Hume  and  Herbert  and  Carr ;  yet  of  two  dark  evils 
he  chooses  to  dare  the  least,  seeing  that  to  pare  down 


174  FEANCIS  BACON. 

VII.  15.  the  subsidies,  as  many  virtuous  and  unreasoning  squires 
propose,  is  to  subject  James  and  his  needy  servants  to 
Feb  '  the  magnificent  corruptions  of  Lerma,  the  great  minister 
of  Spain,  already  suspected,  and  with  truth,  of  having 
taken  the  chief  men  of  the  Privy  Council  and  the  Bed- 
chamber into  his  pay.  Better  own  the  King's  debts  than 
let  Lerma  pay  them.  Therefore,  while  he  speaks  with 
Hastings  and  Hyde  against  patents,  wardships,  private 
monopolies,  the  whole  tag-rag  of  feudal  privilege,  he 
constantly  votes  with  Hitcham  and  Hobart  for  those 
supplies  which  are  necessary  to  maintain  the  splendor 
of  the  Crown  and  the  efficiency  of  the  musters  and  the 
fleet. 

Here  he  parts  from  the  majority ;  wide  as  in  his  vote 
for  union  with  the  Scots. 

16.  Cecil,  knowing  his  kinsman  free  from  selfish  and 
sectarian  views,  consults  him  on  the  money-bills  and  set- 
tlements. The  debates  on  a  grant  for  the  new  reign  are 
about  to  come  on ;  and  Cecil,  who  as  Earl  of  Salisbury 
sits  in  the  Peers,  has  begun  to  feel  his  need  of  a  bold  and 
influential  friend  in  the  Lower  House.  He  hints  that 
the  Court  shall  no  longer  oppose  Bacon's  rise  at  the  bar. 
On  his  part,  Bacon  is  ready  to  assist  the  Crown  in  pro- 
curing an  ample  grant;  to  shape  drafts  and  preambles 
such  as  may  disarm  the  resentment  of  knight  and  squire. 
Cecil  takes  him  at  his  word,  and  Bacon  drafts  a  bill. 
Here  is  a  note  which  shows  how  he  is  nearing  power :  — 

16.  Bacon  to  Cecil,  Feb.  10,  1606,  S.  P.  0. 


BILL   OF    SUPPLY.  175 

BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OF  SALISBURY.  VII.  16. 

Feb.  10, 1606.          J606' 
Feb.  10. 
IT  MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  GOOD   LORDSHIP, — 

I  cannot  as  I  would  express  how  much  I  think  myself 
bounden  to  your  Lordship  for  your  tenderness  over  my 
contentments.  But  herein  I  will  endeavor  hereafter  as  I 
am  able.  I  send  your  Lordship,  a  preamble  for  the  sub- 
sidy, drawing  which  was  my  morning's  labor  to-day. 
This  mould  or  frame,  if  you  like  it  not,  I  will  be  ready  to 
cast  it  again,  de  novo,  if  I  may  receive  your  honorable 
directions  :  for  any  particular  corrections,  it  is  in  a  good 
hand  ;  and  yet  I  will  attend  your  Lordship  (after  to- 
morrow's business,  and  to-morrow  ended,  which  I  know 
will  be  wearisome  to  you)  to  know  your  further  pleasure : 
and  so  in  all  humbleness  I  rest  at  your  Lordship's  honor- 
able commands  more  your  ever  bounden 

F.  BACON. 

17.  After  warm  debates  in  the  Lower  House  a  bill  goes 
up  to  the  throne  for  two  subsidies  and  four  fifteenths,  Mar.  11. 
payable  in  eighteen  months.  It  is  not  enough.  Hitcham, 
member  for  Lyme,  a  patriotic  fighting  town  on  the  Dorset 
coast,  proposes  in  committee  a  second  grant  of  two  sub- 
sidies, four  in  all.  A  dozen  members  rise  at  once.  Peake 
will  hear  no  more  about  the  royal  debts.  Holt  declares 
the  proposition  of  Hitcham  dangerous.  Paddye  will  tell 

17.  Hoby  to  Edmonds,  Mar.  7,  1606;  Cecil  to  Earl  of  Mar,  Mar.  9,  1606, 
S.  P.  0.;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  281-84. 


176  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VII.  17.  the  King  that  even  kings  must  not  do  wrong.  Noy  de- 
claims against  spoiling  the  poor  to  gorge  the  rich.  Dyer 
and  Holcroft  hint  that  more  than  once  demands  like  these 

March. 

have  been  met  by  the  cry,  "  To  arms  !  "  But  the  warm- 
est speaker  is  Lawrence  Hyde  of  West  Hatch,  member  for 
Marlborough.  Courtiers  shrink  from  an  unequal  contest. 
Sir  Edward  Hoby,  an  observant  politician,  friendly  to  his 
kinsman  Cecil  and  the  court,  notes  how  poor  a  figure  the 
King's  official  friends  make  in  that  masculine  and  stormy 
House. 

MM.  is.  18.  Bacon  starts  to  the  front.  In  the  midst  of  a  noisy 
sitting  of  the  committee,  word  comes  down  from  White- 
hall that  James  will  not  wait,  —  that  the  bill  must  be 
passed,  or  the  undutiful  members  shall  feel  his  ire.  Such 
words,  now  frequent,  make  the  King  odious  and  con- 
temptible. A  storm  sets  in ;  the  members  fling  back 
threat  for  threat ;  the  bill  is  lost. 

This  scene  takes  place  on  Tuesday.  On  Thursday  the 
committee  meets  again  ;  the  King  has  not  accepted  his 
defeat,  nor  will  the  Commons  enlarge  their  vote.  Satur- 
day brings  no  change  of  mood.  On  Monday  the  com- 
mittee must  report  to  the  House  ;  and  Bacon,  who  has 
been  made  reporter,  will  have  to  report  against  his  own 
convictions  of  what  is  best  for  the  country  and  the 
Crown.  He  sees  the  committee  sullen,  almost  savage. 
Monday  is  the  anniversary  of  the  King's  accession,  yet 
no  one  rises  to  propose  a  holiday. 

18.  Bacon  to  Cecil,  Mar.  22,  1606,  S.  P.  0.;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  288;  Jonson's 
Epigrams,  41;  a  Proclamation  touching  a  Seditious  Rumor,  Mar.  22,  1606. 


LETTER  TO  EARL  OF  SALISBURY.         177 

Fagged  with  work,  he  must  ride  down  to  Gorhambury  VII.  18. 
for  a  day  of  rest.     He  does  not  wish  to  appear  as  if 
flying   from   his    post,   so    he    takes    up   his   pen    and   Mar>22. 
writes :  — 


BACON  TO  THE  EAEL  OF  SALISBURY. 

This  Saturday,  the  22d  of  March,  1606. 
IT   MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  GOOD   LORDSHIP, — 

I  purpose  upon  promise  rather  than  business  to  make 
a  step  to  my  house  in  the  country  this  afternoon,  which, 
because  your  Lordship  may  hear  otherwise,  and  there- 
upon conceive  any  doubt  of  my  return  to  the  pursuance 
of  the  King's  business,  I  thought  it  concerned  me  to 
give  your  Lordship  an  account  that  I  purpose  (if  I 
live)  to  be  there  to-morrow  in  the  evening,  and  so  to 
report  the  subsidy  on  Monday  morning  ;  which,  though 
it  be  a  day  of  triumph,  yet  I  hear  of  no  adjournment, 
and  therefore  the  House  must  sit.  But  if,  in  regard  of 
the  King's  servants'  attendance,  you  Lordship  conceive 
doubt  the'  House  will  not  be  well  filled  that  day,  I 
humbly  pray  your  Lordship  I  may  receive  your  direc- 
tion for  the  forbearing  to  enter  into  the  matter  that 
day.  I  doubt  not  the  success,  if  those  attend  that 
should.  So  I  rest,  in  all  humbleness,  at  your  Lord- 
ship's honorable  commands, 

F.  BACON. 

An  hour  after  this  note  is  penned  a  rumor  rises,  none 


178  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VII.  18.  knows  how,  that  the  king  is  dead.  Some  say  he  has 
been  shot ;  some,  stabbed ;  some,  smothered  in  his  bed. 

1  ff)f^ 

Mar  22  ^°  one  as^s  wnere  the  King  is ;  all  agree  that  he  is 
killed.  Members  rush  to  the  Council,  to  the  city,  —  but 
the  ministers,  the  aldermen,  know  as  little  as  themselves. 
Some  spur  for  Theobalds,  some  for  Royston.  London 
yields  itself  to  the  wildest  terrors.  Hundreds  of  men 
concerned  in  the  Powder  Plot  are  still  at  large.  Garnet 
is  still  unhung ;  the  priests  are  sworn  to  have  blood  for 
blood  ;  the  Jesuits,  it  is  said,  have  threatened  to  burn 
London  to  ashes,  to  massacre  all  the  Protestants,  should 
that  shining  example  of  Christian  virtue  come  to  harm. 
Citizens  bar  their  doors,  and  swing  on  their  Toledo 
blades. 

A  horseman,  Sir  Herbert  Crofts,  dashes  into  Palace 
Yard.  He  has  seen  the  King !  The  King  is  safe,  and 
near  the  town.  Fear  now  mutinies  into  joy.  Bells 
laugh  over  London  roofs,  crowds  ride  in  procession  to 
meet  their  Prince.  If  he  is  safe,  the  realm  is  safe. 
The  Peers  and  Commons  go  to  Whitehall.  Ben  Jon- 
son  bursts  into  music.  As  night  comes  down,  the 
streets  start  out  with  fire,  and  the  taverns  of  Fleet- 
street  and  Cheapside  roar  with  patriotic  songs. 

MM.  25.  19.  Sunday  and  Monday  pass  in  rejoicings  and  recep- 
tions. Tuesday  brings  up  Bacon.  He  has  not,  he  tells 
the  House  of  Commons,  drawn  a  word-for-word  report 

19.  Com.  Jour.,  i.  286,  299;  Cecil  to  Wotton,  Mar.  19,  June  18,  1606,  S.P.  0.; 
Statutes  3  Jacobi,  c.  26. 


SUBSIDY   GRANTED.  179 

from  the   committee,  for  his  soul  is  shaken  with  too  VII.  19. 
much  fear  and  ioy.     What,  he  cries,  are  a  few  debts  to 

Ifidfi 

the  exultation  now  straining  every  loyal  heart?  These  1^.25. 
debts  are  less  the  King's  than  the  late  Queen's.  The 
Queen  made  war,  the  country  must  repair  the  ravages 
of  war.  Reparation  costs  money.  The  Crown  debts, 
too,  must  be  paid  in  full,  next  year  if  not  this  year; 
and  why  prefer  a  vote  one  session  to  a  vote  another 
session  ?  The  House  can  name  its  time ;  but  he  says, 
Yote  to-day!  In  that  rapturous  and  sacred  moment, 
when  a  great  alarm  has  pressed  heart  to  heart,  and 
made  the  whole  nation  one,  he  calls  on  the  gentlemen 
of  England  to  crown  their  own  happy  work  by  voting 
the  subsidies  necessary  to  support  the  power  of  the 
country,  the  independence  of  the  Crown. 

His  eloquence  bears   away  the  House.     Hyde  fronts 

• 

the  stream;  but  the  tide  has  turned  towards  White- 
hall, and  he  strives  against  genius  and  enthusiasm,  if 
manfully  yet  in  vain.  A  bill  for  another  subsidy  is 
passed. 

20.   In  the  flush  of  this  triumph,  with  his  fame  now    Maye. 
fixed,  and  with  a  great  place,  won  byhimself,  not  tossed 
to  him  by  a  patron,  within  reach  of  his  hand  (not,  as 
Lord  Campbell  says,  when  he  is  poor  and  down  in  the 
summer  of  the  Queen's  death),  he  begs  the  lady  of  his 

20.  Bacon  to  Egerton,  Tanner  MSS.  251,  fol.  88  b;  Rawley's  Resuscitatio, 
41;  Domestic  Papers,  James  I.,  xix.  33;  Heath's  Preface,  Bacon's  Works, 
vii.  576. 


180  FEANCIS  BACON. 

VH.  20.  love  to  name  her  day.  Three  years  ago  they  were 
pledged  to  each  other  ;  he  could  have  made  her  Lady 
May<  Bacon,  then,  or  at  any  time  since  then ;  but  he  has 
hoped  to  give  to  his  bride  a  more  settled  fortune 
and  a  more  illustrious  name.  Renown  beyond  the 
dreams  of  woman  he  can  give  her.  Nor  is  he  poor  in 
those  worldly  gifts  which  girls  are  taught  to  covet  even 
more  than  character  and  fame.  Besides  the  grants 
bestowed  upon  him  by  Elizabeth,  the  reversion  in  the 
Star  Chamber  (not  yet  fallen  in),  and  the  leases  of 
Cheltenham  and  Charlton  Kings,  of  the  Pitts  and  Twick- 
enham Park,  the  death  of  poor  Anthony  (dead  of  the 
vices  and  excesses  caught  from  his  noble  friend)  has 
given  him  Gorhambury  and  the  lands  about  it,  where 
he  now  lives  when  not  at  Gray's  Inn,  and  where,  in 
after  years,  he  will  build  Verulam  House  by  the  pond, 
taking  his  house,  as  he  says,  to  the  water,  when*  the 
water  will  no  longer  flow  to  his  house.  More  than  all, 
the  patent  of  Solicitor-General  may  be  now  sealed  to 
him  any  day  or  week,  a  post  of  not  less  value  than 
three  or  four  thousand  pounds  a  year,  with  openings  to 
higher  office  and  greater  pay,  to  the  Privy  Council,  the 
Peerage,  and  the  Seals.  He  is  rich,  too,  in  genius  and 
in  noble  friends.  If  Cecil  plays  with  him  fast  and  loose, 
the  Lord  Chancellor  pushes  his  fortunes  at  the  bar,  and 
Lady  Egerton  smooths  his  suit  with  the  young  beauty 
and  with  her  domineering  kin.  Sir  John  is  in  high 
spirits.  True,  the  bill  to  exempt  the  four  shires  from 
Lord  Zouch's  jurisdiction  has  been  dropped  by  the  Lords ; 


mS   MARRIAGE.  181 

but  the  king  has  assured   Sir  Herbert  Crofts  with  his  VTL  20. 
own  lips  that  right  shall  be  done  ;  and  the  loyal  country 
gentleman  believes  that  when  a  prince  promises  to  do 
right  he  will  of  course  maintain  his  word. 
The  day  is  named ;  the  tenth  of  May. 

21.  By  help  of  Sir  Dudley  Carleton  we  may  look  upon  May  10 
the  pleasant  scene,  upon  the  pretty  bride,  the  jovial 
knight,  the  romping  girls,  and  the  merry  company,  as 
through  a  glass.  Feathers  and  lace  light  up  the  rooms 
in.  the  Strand.  Cecil  has  been  warmly  urged  to  come 
over  from  Salisbury  House.  Three  of  his  gentlemen, 
Sir  Walter  Cope,  Sir  Baptist  Hicks,  and  Sir  Hugh  Bee- 
ston,  hard  drinkers  and  men  about  town,  strut  over* 
in  his  stead,  flaunting  in  their  swords  and  plumes  ;  yet 
the  prodigal  bridegroom,  sumptuous  in  his  tastes  as  in 
his  genius,  clad  in  a  suit  of  Genoese  velvet,  purple  from 
cap  to  shoe,  outbraves  them  all.  The  bride,  too,  is 
richly  dight;  her  whole  dowry  seeming  to  be  piled  up 
on  her  in  cloth  of  silver  and  ornaments  of  gold.  The 
wedding  rite  is  performed  at  St.  Marylebone  chapel, 
two  miles  from  the  Strand,  among  the  lanes  and  suburbs 
winding  towards  the  foot  of  Hampstead  Hill.  Who  that 
is  blessed  with  any  share  of  sympathy  or  poetry  cannot 
see  how  that  glad  and  shining  party  ride  to  the  rural 
church  on  that  sunny  tenth  of  May  ?  how  the  girls  will 
laugh  and  Sir  John  will  joke,  as  they  wind  through  lanes 

21.  Carleton  to  Chamberlain,  May  11,  1606,  S.  P.  0.;  Bacon's  Will;  Sped- 
ding's  Bacon,  i.  8. 


182  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VII.  21.  now  white  with  thorn  and  the  bloom  of  pears  ?  how  the 
bridesmaids  scatter  rosemary  and  the  groomsmen  strug- 

IfifWi 

Ma  10  Sle  for  tne  kiss  ?  Who  cannot  imagine  that  dinner  in 
the  Strand,  though  the  hunchback  Earl  of  Salisbury  has 
not  come  over  to  Sir  John's  lodging  to  taste  the  cheer 
or  kiss  the  bride  ?  We  know  that  the  wit  is  good,  for 
Bacon  is  there  ;  we  may  trust  Sir  John  for  the  quality  of 
his  wine. 

Alice  brings  to  her  husband  two  hundred  and  twenty 
pounds  a  year,  with  a  further  claim,  on  her  mother's 
death,  of  one  hundred  and  forty  pounds  a  year.  As 
Lady  Pakington  long  outlived  Bacon,  that  increase  never 
came  into  his  hands.  Two  hundred  and  twenty  pounds 
a  year  is  his  wife's  whole  fortune.  What  is  not  spent  in 
lace  and  satins  for  her  bridal  dress,  he  allows  her  to  in- 
vest for  her  separate  use.  From  his  own  estate  he  settles 
on  her  five  hundred  pounds  a  year. 

Now,  in  what  sense  can  a  marriage  in  which  there 
seems  to  be  a  good  deal  of  love,  and  in  which  there 
certainly  is  no  great  flush  of  money,  be  called,  on  Bacon's 
side,  a  mercenary  match  ? 

June.  22.  A  slight  more  galling  than  has  yet  been  put  on 
him  awaits  the  close  of  his  honeymoon.  Only  a  few  days 
after  his  marriage  to  Alice,  Sir  Francis  Gawdy,  of  the 
Common  Pleas,  stricken  with  apoplexy,  is  removed  from 
his  chambers  at  Sergeants'  Inn  to  Easton  Hall,  where  he 

22.  Foss's  Judges  of  England,  vi.  158,306,329:  Chron.  Jurid.  181;  Montagu, 
v.  297 ;  Council  Reg.,  Oct.  14,  1606. 


AGAIN  SLIGHTED.  183 

soon  after  dies.  Coke  goes  up  to  the  bench,  and  Dod-  vn.  22. 
eridge,  the  Solicitor-General,  ought  by  the  custom  of  the 
law  to  follow  Coke,  leaving  the  post  of  Solicitor  void.  June 
But  Sir  Francis  Gawdy  having  been  a  partisan  of  the 
Essex  faction,  and  his  daughter  married  to  the  son  of 
Lady  Rich,  Cecil,  either  anxious  not  to  offend  that  power- 
ful faction,  which  he  has  made  his  own  by  a  double  con- 
tract of  marriage,  or  doubtful  of  his  cousin's  subserviency 
in  office,  sets  aside  the  usual  order  of  promotion  at  the 
bar,  and  raises  Sir  Henry  Hobart,  his  obscure  Attorney  July  ^ 
of  the  Court  of  Wards,  over  Doderidge's  as  well  as  over 
Bacon's  head,  to  the  high  place  of  Attorney-General.  Oct. 
Bacon  complains  to  Egerton  and  Cecil  of  the  insult  even 
more  than  the  wrong  of  such  a  trick.  The  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, who  sees  the  error  made  by  the  government  in 
alienating  the  most  powerful  man  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, proposes  to  heal  the  wound  by  asking  Sir  John 
Doderidge  to  yield  his  patent  to  Bacon,  taking  in  ex- 
change the  place  of  King's  Sergeant,  together  with  a 
promise  of  the  first  seat  that  shall  fall  vacant  in  the 
King's  Bench.  To  this  Sir  John  and  Cecil  both  object. 

23.   When  Parliament  meets  in  November  to  discuss     NOT. 
the  Bill  of  Union,  Bacon  stands  back.     The  King  has 
chosen  his    Attorney ;    let  the  new  Attorney  fight  the 
King's  battle.    The  adversaries  to  be  met  are  bold  and 

23.  Carleton  to  Chamberlain,  Dec.  18,  1606,  S.  P.  0.;  Foster  to  Mathews, 
Feb.  16, 1607,  S.  P.  0.;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  314,  333;  Lane's  Reports  in  the  Court 
of  Exchequer,  22,  31;  M'Crie's  Life  of  Melville,  ii.  234. 


184  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VII.  23.  manyv  During  the  recess  Cecil  has  imposed  on  the 
country  a  Book  of  Rates,  pretending  that  taxes  may  be 
Nov  lawfully  laid  in  the  King's  ports  at  the  King's  pleasure. 
John  Bates,  a  merchant  trading  with  Venice,  resisting  a 
tax  unsanctioned  by  the  House  of  Commons,  has  been 
condemned  in  the  Court  of  Exchequer  ;  but  this  con- 
demnation of  Bates  rousing  a  nation  of  tax-payers,  from 
every  port  into  which  ships  can  float  come  protests 
against  Sir  Thomas  Fleming's  reading  of  the  law.  Be- 
yond the  Tweed,  too,  people  are  mutinous  to  the  point 
of  war ;  for  the  countrymen  of  Andrew  Melville  begin 
to  suspect  the  King  of  a  design  against  the  Kirk,  and 
Melville  himself,  lured  by  a  false  pretence  from  St.  An- 
drew's to  London,  has  been  Drovoked  into  an  indiscretion, 
and  clapped  in  the  Tower. 

Under  such  crosses,  the  Bill  on  Union  fares  but  ill. 
Fuller,  the  bilious  representative  of  London,  flies  at  the 
Scots.  The  Scots  in  London  are  in  the  highest  degree 
unpopular.  Lax  in  morals  and  in  taste,  they  will  take 
the  highest  place  at  table,  they  will  drink  out  of  any- 
body's can,  they  will  kiss  the  hostess  or  her  buxom  maid 
without  saying,  "  By  your  leave."  Brawls  fret  the  tav- 
erns which  they  haunt ;  pasquins  hiss  against  them  from 
the  stage.  Such  broils  distract  the  poor  King,  who  sees 
no  way  to  put  them  down  save  by  commanding  Popham 
to  whip  and  pillory  the  rogues  who  beat  his  countrymen 
and  friends.  Three  great  poets,  Jonson,  Chapman,  and 
Marston,  go  to  jail  for  a  harmless  jest  against  these  Scots. 
Such  acts  of  rigor  make  the  name  of  Union  hateful  to  the 
public  ear. 


BILL   OF  UNION.  185 

Hobart  goes  to  the  wall.     James  now  sees  that  the  bat-  VIT.  23. 
tie  is  not  to  the  weak  nor  the  race  to  the  slow.     Bacon  has 

1  fiC\f\ 

only  to  hold  his  tongue  and  make  his  terms.  Alarmed  ^ 
lest  the  Bill  of  Union  may  be  rejected  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing vote,  Cecil  suddenly  adjourns  the  House.  He  must 
get  strength.  The  plan  proposed  by  Egerton  for  making 
Doderidge  a  King's  Sergeant,  Bacon  the  Solicitor-General, 
is  revived.  Pressed  on  all  sides,  here  by  the  Lord  Chan- 
cellor, there  by  a  mutinous  House  of  Commons,  Cecil  at 
length  yields  to  his  cousin's  claim,  Sir  John  Doderidge 
bows  his  neck,  and  when  Parliament  meets  after  the 
Christmas  holidays  Bacon  holds  in  his  pocket  a  written 
engagement  for  the  Solicitor's  place. 

24.  The  Bill  of  Union,  drawn  by  Egerton,  consists  of  1607. 
four  parts  :  hostile  laws,  border  laws,  laws  of  commerce,  Feb' 14' 
laws  of  navigation.  Three  of  these  parts  present  no  diffi- 
culties to  the  House  of  Commons.  Statutes  which  forbid 
a  Scot  to  pass  the  Tweed,  which  fill  the  dales  of  Ettrick 
and  Yarrow  with  feud  and.  slaughter,  which  prohibit  the 
sale  of  English  wool  in  Scotland  and  of  Scottish  furs  in 
England,  find  no  advocates.  All  the  old  barbarous  laws 
are  at  once  annulled.  But  the  knights  and  burgesses 
resist  the  King's  design  of  naturalizing  the  whole  Scot- 
tish population. 

Nicholas  Fuller  reopens  the  debate.  A  union  of  these 
two  countries,  says  the  uncivil  member  for  London,  would 
be  a  marriage  of  the  rich  with  the  poor,  the  strong  with 

24.  Com.  Jour..  L  333-337  ;  Lords'  Jour.,  ii.  469,  472 ;  Statutes,  4  Jac.  c.  1. 


186  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VII.  24.  the  weak.  With  the  pardonable  pride  of  a  London  bur- 
gess he  points  to  the  arts,  the  industry,  and  wealth  of 

Feb.  u.  England,  to  its  orchards  swelling  with  fruit,  its  pastures 
fat  with  kine,  its  waters  white  with  sails,  to  its  thriving 
people,  abundant  agriculture,  inexhaustible  fisheries, 
woods,  and  mines.  With  all  these  riches  he  contrasts 
a  land  of  crags  and  storms,  peopled  by  a  race  of  men 
rude  as  their  climate,  poor  in  resources  and  in  genius, 
a  nation  with  peddlers  for  merchants,  and  two  or  three 
rotten  hoys  for  a  fleet.  Such  countries,  he  contends,  are 
best  apart.  What  man  in  his  senses,  having  two  estates 
divided  by  a  hedge,  one  fruitful,  one  waste,  will  break 
down  his  fence  and  let  the  cattle  stray  from  the  waste 
into  garden  and  corn-field  ?  Will  any  one  mingle  two 
swarms  of  bees  ?  why  then  two  hostile  swarms  of  men  ? 
England  is  bare  as  the  land  round  Bethel ;  so  that  nature 
and  God  call  out  to  separate  the  nations,  as  Lot  chose  the 
left  hand,  Abraham  the  right.  He  denies  that  the  King's 
accession  has  changed  the  relations  of  the  Saxon  to  the 
Scot ;  and  sits  down  with  demanding  whether,  if  Mary  had 
borne  a  son  to  Philip,  that  son  being  heir  to  his  father's 
crowns,  an  English  Parliament  would  have  naturalized 
the  people  of  Sicily  and  Spain  ? 

25.  The  speech  makes  a  deep  impression.  Fuller  speaks 
to  men  convinced  ;  men  sore  from  daily  wrongs  and  in- 
sults. Bacon,  rising  to  reply,  begins  with  that  shower  of 

25.  Speech  by  Sir  Francis  Bacon  in  the  House  of  Commons  concerning  the 
Naturalization  of  the  Scots,  1641 ;  Wilson,  37. 


DEBATE   ON  UNION  BILL.  187 

image  and  illustration  which  his  experience  tells  him  is 
never  lost  on  a  learned  and  poetic  House.  He  begs  his 
hearers  to  forget  all  private  feuds,  to  raise  their  minds  to  Feb<1- 
questions  of  the  highest  state  ;  not  as  merchants  dealing 
with  mean  affairs,  but  as  judges  and  kings  charged  with 
the  weal  of  empires.  Glancing  in  scorn  at  Fuller,  he 
passes  with  his  light  laugh  the  moral  of  that  tale  of  Abra- 
ham and  Lot,  a  parting  cursed  with  a  cruel  war  and  a 
long  captivity,  to  his  illustration  of  the  fence.  The  King, 
Bacon  says,  threw  down  the  fence  when  he  crossed  the 
Tweed  ;  yet  the  flock  of  Scots  has  not  yet  followed  through 
the  rent.  Proud  and  lavish,  doting  on  dress  and  show, 
the  Scottish  gentleman  will  rather  starve  at  home  than 
betray  his  poverty  abroad.  The  Roman  commons  fought 
for  the  right  to  name  Plebeian  consuls,  and,  when  they 
had  won  the  right,  voted  for  Patricians :  so  with  the 
Scots  :  they  claim  the  privilege  of  coming  into  England ; 
yield  the  right,  and  they  will  not  come.  It  is  said  the 
land  is  full.  London,  he  grants,  is  thronged  and  swol- 
len,—  not  the  open  downs  and  plains.  France  counts 
more  people  to  the  mile.  Flanders,  Italy,  Germany  ex- 
ceed us  in  population.  Are  there  no  English  towns 
decayed  ?  Are  there  no  ancient  cities  heaps  of  stones  ? 
Why,  marsh  grows  on  the  pasture,  pasture  on  the 
plough-land.  "Wastes  increase  ;  the  soil  cries  loud  for 
hands  to  sow  the  corn  and  reap  the  harvest.  But  this 
bill  for  naturalizing  the  Scots  stands  on  a  far  higher 
ground.  A  people,  warlike  as  the  Romans  and  as  our- 
selves, a  race  of  men,  who,  like  wild  horses,  are  hard  to 


188  FRANCIS  BACON. 

"VH.  25.  control  because  lusty  with  blood  and  youth,  offer  to  be 

one  people  with  us,  friends  in  the  day  of  peace,  allies  in 
1607 
Feb '    the  day  of  strife.     Take  from  the  Scots  this  brand  of 

aliens,  they  will  stand  by  our  side,  bulwarks  and  defend- 
ers against  the  world.  Should  you  shut  them  out  from 
England,  treating  them  as  strangers  and  enemies,  they 
may  prove  to  you  what  the  Pisans  proved  to  Florence, 
the  Latins  to  Rome.  In  our  ancient  wars  the  invader 
found  the  gates  of  our  kingdom  open.  France  could 
enter  through  Scotland,  Spain  through  Ireland.  Pass 
this  bill,  we  close  our  gates.  No  minor  argument  de- 
serves a  thought.  Union  is  strength,  union  is  defence. 
You  object  that  the  Scots  are  poor.  Are  not  strong 
limbs  better  than  riches  ?  Has  not  Solon  told  us  the 
man  of  iron  is  master  of  the  man  of  gold  ?  Does  not 
Macchiavelli  pour  his  scorn  at  the  false  proverb  which 
makes  money  the  sinews  of  war  ?  The  true  sinews  of 
war  are  the  sinews  of  valiant  men.  Leave,  gentlemen,  to 
the  Spaniards  the  delusion  that  a  heap  of  gold,  niched 
from  a  feeble  race,  can  give  the  dominion  of  the  world.  If 
union  with  the  Scots  will  not  bring  riches  to  our  doors,  it 
will  bring  safety  to  our  frontiers,  will  give  us  strength  at 
sea  and  reserves  on  land.  Alone  we  have  borne  our  flag 
aloft ;  with  Scotland  united  in  arms,  with  Ireland  settled 
and  at  peace,  with  our  war  fleets  on  every  sea,  our  mer- 
chants in  every  port,  we  shall  become  the  first  power  in 
the  world.  "Warmed  with  such  glorious  hopes, -how  can 
the  gentleman  of  England  stand  upon  terms  and  audits, 
—  upon  mine  and  thine,  —  upon  he  knows  not  what ! 


DEBATE   ON  UNION   BILL.  189 

26.  The   House   rings  with  applause.     Cecil  sends  a  VII.  2(5. 

copy  of  this  speech  to  James  ;  and,  in  the  midst  of  his 

1607. 
trials,  it  is   some   pleasure   to   the   poor  pedant  to  see      Feb 

what  splendid  things  a  practical  statesman  and  philoso- 
pher can  say  for  his  favorite  scheme. 

If   the   Union  is   postponed  till   another  generation, 
its  eloquen,t  advocate  gains  his  place. 

Lord  Campbell  assumes  that  Egerton's  plan  for  Ba-  June  25. 
con's  promotion  failed,  and  that  he  rose  into  office 
through  the  changes  on  Popham's  death.  These  are 
mistakes.  Fleming  succeeds  Popham,  Tanfield  succeeds 
Fleming,  and  Hobart  remains  Attorney.  To  create  a 
vacancy,  Doderidge  has  to  take  the  coif,  when  Bacon's 
commission  as  the  King's  Solicitor-General  immediately 
passes  the  Seal. 

26.  CecU  to  Lake,  April  16,  1607,  S.  P.  0.;  Chron.  Jurid.,  183. 


190  FRANCIS  BACON. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

SOLICITOR-GENERAL. 

VIII.  1.      1.  ON  the  twenty-fifth  of  June,  1607,  at  the  age  of 
forty-six  years  and  five  months,  Bacon   entered  office. 

June 25  During  *ne  s^  years  which  he  acted  as  Solicitor-General, 
Lord  Campbell  has  found  no  flaw  in  his  practice,  — 
abstinence  which  is  due  in  part  to  the  circumstance 
that  for  these  six  years,  with  the  unimportant  exception 
of  the  trial  of  Lord  Sanquhair  for  murder,  Lord  Camp- 
bell has  overlooked  every  fact  in  Bacon's  life.  If  there 
is  nothing  to  relate,  there  may  be  nothing  to  condemn. 
Yet  there  is  much  in  the  story  of  these  six  years,— 
years  in  which  he  wrought  at  the  Essays  and  shaped 
out  the  New  Philosophy ;  in  which,  to  his  personal  dis- 
quiet, he  resisted  the  design  of  Sir  John  Pakington 
and  his  friends  to  abridge  the  authority  of  the  Court 
of  Wales ;  in  which,  at  his  personal  risk  and  loss,  he 
aided  to  plant  Virginia  and  Ulster ;  in  which,  against 
his  professional  interests,  he  engaged  in  many  a  good 
fight  for  popular  liberties  against  the  Crown,  —  which 
men  of  sense  and  spirit  will  wish  for  the  sake  of  ex- 
ample to  keep  alive. 

1.  Campbell's  Life  of  Bacon,  iii.  56. 


POSITION  OF   CECIL.  191 

2.  Cecil  is  now  at  his  height  of  fortune.     On  the  Vin.  2. 

sudden,  dramatic  death  of   Dorset,  the  most  daring  of 

1608. 
poets,  the  most  prudent  of  financiers,  Cecil  takes  the     Apri] 

White  Staff  without  parting  from  his  office  as  premier 
Secretary  of  State.  He  is  now  nearly  all  in  all.  Ex- 
cept in  naval  affairs,  in  which  Nottingham's  great  age 
and  eminence  as  a  sailor  forbid  all  meddling,  no  depart- 
ment of  the  public  service,  home  or  foreign,  trade,  po- 
lice, finances,  law,  religion,  war,  and  peace,  escapes  the 
quick  eye  and  controlling  hand  of  the  tiny  hunchback. 
Every  one  serves  him,  every  enterprise  enriches  him. 
He  builds  a  new  palace  at  Hatfield,  a  new  Exchange 
in  the  Strand.  Countesses  intrigue  for  him.  His  son 
marries  a  Howard,  his  daughter  a  Clifford.  Ambassa- 
dors start  for  Italy,  less  to  see  Doges  and  Grand  Dukes 
than  to  pick  up  pictures  and  statues,  bronzes  and  hang- 
ings for  his  vast  establishment  at  Hatfield  Chace.  Gar- 
deners travel  through  France  to  buy  up  for  him  mulber- 
ries and  vines.  Salisbury  House  on  the  Thames  almost 
rivals  the  luxurious  villas  of  the  Roman  Cardinals  in 
wealth  of  tapestry,  of  furniture,  and  plate.  Yet  under  M»y- 
this  blaze  of  worldly  success  Cecil  is  the  most  miserable 
of  men.  Friends  grudge  his  rise  ;  his  health  is  broken  ; 
the  reins  which  his  ambition  draws  into  his  hands  are 
beyond  the  powers  of  a  man  to  grasp ;  and  the  vigor  of 
his  frame,  wasted  by  years  of  voluptuous  license,  fails 
him  at  the  moment  when  the  strain  on  his  faculties  is 
at  the  full. 

2.  Eure  to  Cecil,  April  27,  1608,  S.  P.  0. ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  July  7, 
1608;  Provisoes  between  Salisbury  and  Morral,  Dec.  1608,  S.  P.  0. 


192  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VIII.  3.  3.  In  this  strain  of  powers  no  longer  fresh,  in  this 
solitude  of  severed  friendships,  in  this  misery  of  broken 
health,  Cecil  turns  to  his  hale,  bright  cousin,  not  for  the 
companionship  he  will  not  give,  but  for  "the  hints  and 
helps  a  lawyer  has  to  sell.  Bacon  does  not  love  him. 
More  than  Coke,  Cecil  has  been  to  him  a  cross  and  grief; 
for,  while  he  can  fight  with  his  own  weapons  the  coarse 
and  spiteful  foe,  his  gentle  heart  supplies  no  armory 
of  defence  against  the  cold  and  veiled  contempt  of 
his  perfidious  friend.  When  this  agonized  spectre  of 
success  invites  him  to  more  frequent  consultations  on 
affairs,  instead  of  gliding  into  that  kindly  and  gra- 
cious correspondence  which  is  the  habit  of  his  pen,  he 
chooses  to  stand  with  him  on  the  ceremonial  footing  of 
good  manners  and  the  duties  of  his  place.  While  writ- 
ing notes  of  business  like  the  following,  Bacon  may 
have  in  mind  the  day,  not  long  ago,  when  the  Earl 
of  Salisbury  declined  to  cross  the  Strand  to  taste  the 
hypocras  and  kiss  the  bride  :  — 

BACON  TO  SALISBURY. 

Aog.  24.  This  Wednesday,  the  24th  of  Aug.  1608. 

IT   MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  LORDSHIP, — 

I  had  cast  not  to  fail  to  attend  your  Lordship  to- 
morrow, which  was  the  day  your  Lordship  had  ap- 
pointed for  your  being  at  London ;  but  having  this  day 
about  noon  received  knowledge  of  your  being  at  Ken- 

3.  Bacon  to  Cecil,  Aug.  24, 1608,  S.  P.  0.;  Essays,  xliv. 


THE   COURT   OF   WALES.  193 

sington,  and  that  it  had  pleased  your  Lordship  to  send  VIII.  3 
for  me  to  dine  with  you  as  this  day,  I  made  what  dili- 

1608 

gence  I  could  to  return  from  Gorhambury ;  and  though  Aug  ^ 
I  came  time  enough  to  have  waited  on  your  Lordship 
this  evening,  yet,  your  Lordship  being  in  so  good  a 
place  to  refresh  yourself,  and  though  it  please  your 
Lordship  to  use  me  as  a  kinsman,  yet  I  cannot  leave 
behind  me  the  shape  of  a  Solicitor.  I  thought  it  better 
manners  to  stay  till  to-morrow,  what  time  I  will  ^ait 
on  you.  And,  at  all  times  rest,  your  Lordship's  most 
humble  and  bounden, 

F.  BACON. 

To  the  last  hour  of  Cecil's  life,  Bacon  keeps  this 
ceremonial  style.  No  kindness  flows  between  the  cous- 
ins ;  they  talk  of  business,  not  of  love ;  and  when  Cecil 
passes  to  his  rest,  a  new  edition  of  the  Essays,  under 
cover  of  a  treatise  on  Deformity,  paints  in  true  and 
bold  lines,  but  without  one  harsh  touch,  the  genius  of 
the  man. 

4.  The  feud  of  the  four  shires  is  again  ablaze.  Sir  NOT. 
John  Pakington  has  found  that  the  King's  promise  to 
do  right  has  borne  no  fruit  for  him  or  for  his  friends 
sweeter  than  the  sour  crabs  of  his  own  orchard.  Lord 
Zouch  is  gone,  and  Lord  Eure,  with  a  new  set  of  stand- 
ing orders,  reigns  in  his  stead  ;  yet  the  Court  of  Wales, 

4.  Cott.  MSS.  Vit.,  c.  1;  Dom.  Papers  of  James  the  First,  xxviii.  48,  xxxii. 
13,  14,  S.  P.  0  ;  Heath's  Preface,  Bacon's  Works,  vii.  684. 

9  M 


194  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VIII.  4.  under  this  new  President,  is  no  less  warm  to  maintain 
its  right  than  under  the  old.  Indeed,  in  the  belief  of 
wise  and  practical  men,  the  time  has  not  arrived  for 
either  abolishing  the  court  or  interfering  with  its  powers. 
This  Court  of  Wales  and  the  Welsh  Border,  like  the 
more  important  Court  of  the  North,  was  erected  as  a 
defence  against  Papist  Missionaries  and  Papist  plots. 
The  gentry  of  Wales  and  of  the  Border  shires  were 
mainly  Roman  Catholic  ;  and  every  villain  who  in  Eliza- 
beth's time  disturbed  the  public  peace,  and  brought 
shame  or  punishment  on  the  members  of  the  Roman 
Church,  reckoned  on  the  aid  of  an  army  of  fighting  and 
fanatical  Sir  Hughs.  The  Court  of  Wales  kept  them 
under.  The  poor,  who  wished  to  smelt  the  iron-ore,  to 
feed  their  sheep,  to  dredge  their  streams  for  pearls,  and 
net  their  bays  for  fish,  in  peace,  blessed  it  for  this  boon, 
and  not  for  this  alone ;  for  this  royal  Court  gave  them 
such  cheap  and  speedy  justice  as  could  not  be  obtained 
in  counties  governed  by  the  ordinary  courts  under  the 
common  law.  If  prompt  and  stern,  its  rule  was  national 
in  spirit,  popular  in  aim.  The  abuses  which  crept  in  a 
few  years  later,  and  which  caused  its  fall,  were  of  a  kind 
unknown  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  and  only  just  begin- 
ning to  be  known  in  the  days  of  James.  Charles  the 
First  gave  a  new  aim  to  the  Court,  perverting  the  power 
created  by  Henry  and  fostered  by  Elizabeth  as  a  defence 
of  the  national  sentiment  and  national  faith,  into  instru- 
ments of  attack  upon  them  ;  then,  indeed,  but  not  till 
then,  the  Court  of  Wales  fell  under  public  odium,  and 


THE   COURT   OF   WALES.  195 

was  swept  away  in  the   revolutionary  storm.     But  the  VIII.  4. 
men  who  destroyed  it  under  Charles  were  not  the  men 

1608. 

who  complained  of  it  under  James.     The  Crofts,  Hop-     Nov 
tons,  Pakingtons,  Sandys,  Lees,  Sheldons,  Blounts,  and 
Corbets  who  contested  the  authority  of  Lord  Eure,  were 
afterwards  no  less  hot  011  the  other  side,  voting  and  fight- 
ing against  popular  rights  under  Charles. 

5.  To  Sir  John,  and  to  country  gentlemen  like  Sir 
John,  the  Court  of  Wales  is  not  so  much  a  national 
grievance  as  a  personal  offence.  It  takes  from  his  place 
and  dignity ;  and  he  instructs  his  under-sheriff  to  refuse 
obedience  to  the  precepts  of  such  a  Court.  The  gentry 
of  Herefordshire  are  up  in  arms ;  but  people  in  the 
southern  and  middle  shires  suspect,  as  proves  to  be  the 
fact  ere  long,  that  these  loud  cries  against  the  Court  of 
Wales  come  mainly  from  a  wish  on  the  part  of  a  few 
magistrates  to  get  rid  of  a  popular  and  successful  local 
power,  which  curbs  for  the  common  good  their  private 
feuds,  and  keeps  a  bright  eye  on  the  movements  of  their 
missionary  priests.  Many  of  those  who  cry  loudest 
against  the  Court  are  said  to  find  reasons  for  their  dis- 
content in  the  commands  of  their  confessors.  Most  of 
them  are  Papists,  open  or  concealed.  Sir  Herbert  Crofts, 
long  passing  for  a  firm  Protestant,  has  within  the  year 
avowed  himself  a  convert  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  Sir 


5.  Eure  to  Salisbury,  Jan.  26,  1608,  S.  P.  0. ;  Eure  to  Pakington,  Jan.  3, 
1608,  S.  P.  0.;  Pakington  to  Eure,  Jan.  17,  1608,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Reg., 
Nov.  2,  1613. 


196  FRANCIS  BACON. 

Vltl.  5.  John  adheres  to  the  Church,  but  his  near  kinsman, 
Humphrey  Pakington,  is  an  active  and  dangerous  re- 
*NOT.  cusant,  whose  name  is  constantly  before  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil. Lord  Eure  complains  to  Sir  John.  Sir  John  flatly 
refuses  to  obey  his  precepts.  Eure  writes  to  Lord  Salis- 
bury that  his  powers  must  be  preserved  in  full,  or  he 
shall  feel  it  a  duty  to  resign  his  place. 

6.  Cecil  consults  Bacon,  now  become  chief  adviser 
of  the  Crown  in  all  affairs  of  law,  and  finds  his  opinion 
on  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Court  of  Wales,  as  in  most 
things,  the  reverse  of  that  pronounced  by  Coke.  Coke 
is  against  Eure.  A  dry,  stiff  formalist,  wanting  the 
warmth  of  heart,  the  large  round  of  sympathies  which 
enable  his  illustrious  rival  at  the  bar  to  see  into  polit- 
ical questions  with  the  eyes  of  a  poet  and  a  statesman, 
Coke  can  only  treat  a  constituted  court  as  a  thing  of 
words,  dates,  readings,  and  decisions  ;  not  as  a  living 
fact  in  close  relation  to  other  living  facts,  and  having 
in  itself  the  germs  of  growth  and  change.  A  point  of 
law  is  taken  for  debate  before  the  judges,  when  Bacon 
appears  in  opposition  to  Sir  John  and  his  friends,  and 
pronounces  that  argument  on  the  Jurisdiction  of  the 
Marches  which  is  printed  in  his  works.  After  this  hear- 
ing a  proclamation  from  the  King  announces  the  con- 
firmed authority  of  the  Court  of  "Wales  ;  but  the  mag- 

6.  Dora.  Papers  James  the  First,  xxxvii.  53,  54,  56,  S.  P.  0.;  Bacon's  Works, 
vii  587 ;  Proclamation  for  the  Continuance  of  the  Authority  and  Jurisdiction 
of  the  Presidencies  of  the  North  and  of  Wales  [Nov.  1608]. 


THE  AMERICAN  PLANTATIONS.  197 

istrates  of  the  four  shires  continue  their  opposition,  and  Vin.  6. 
the  case  drags  on  for  nine  or  ten  years,  until  these  mag- 
istrates drop  the  agitation  in  presence  of  more  solemn     NoT 
facts. 

7.  In  no  History  of  America,  in  no  Life  of  Bacon,     1609. 
have  I  found  one  word  to  connect  him  with  the  planta-       y 
tion   of  that  great   Republic.      Yet,   like   Raleigh  and 
Delaware,  he  takes  an  active  share  in  the  labors,  a  con- 
spicuous part  in  the  sacrifices,  through  which  the  foun- 
dations of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  are  first  laid. 

Like  men  of  far  less  note,  who  have  received  far 
higher  honors  in  America,  Bacon  pays  his  money  into 
the  great  Company,  and  takes  office  in  its  management 
as  one  of  the  Council.  To  his  other  glories,  therefore, 
must  be  added  that  of  a  Founder  of  New  States. 

8.  The  causes  which  led  Bacon,  with  most  of  his  par- 
liamentary and  patriotic  colleagues,  to  join  the  Virginia 
Company  with  person  and  purse,  are  the  same  causes 
which  move  him  to  fight  for  the  Union  and  the  Sub- 
sidies.    The   plantation  of  Virginia  is  a  branch  of  the 
great  contest  with  Spain. 

England  and  Spain  have  long  been  rivals  in  planta- 
tion and  discovery.  Neither  may  claim  for  itself  the 
wide  continents  of  America  by  the  happy  exercise  of 


7.  Virginia  Charter  Book,  May  23,  1609,  S.  P.  0. 

8.  Fernando  Gorges's  Brief  Relation,  3, 10 ;  Charters  of  Virginia,  April  10. 
1606,  Mar.  9, 1607,  May  23, 1609,  S.  P.  0. 


198  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VIII.  8.  native  genius  ;  for  while  a  Genoese  gave  the  south  to 
Spain,  a  Venetian  conferred  the  north  on  England.  Fro- 

t  rVtQ 

M.ty  23.  bisher  and  Gilbert  followed  in  the  wake  of  Cabot,  though 
in  a  different  spirit  and  working  to  another  end.  In- 
flamed by  tales  of  the  Incas'  shining  palaces,  Frobisher 
went  forth  in  search  of  mines  and  gold ;  Gilbert,  who 
revived  the  spirit  of  the  Great  Discoverer,  sailed  to  the 
far  west  and  gallantly  gave  his  life,  not  for  the  rewards 
of  wealth  and  fame,  but  solely  in  the  hope  of  extending 
English  power  and  of  converting  souls  to  God.  When 
he  sank  in  the  Golden  Hind  he  left  these  tasks  to  his 
young  half-brother,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  who  lived  to  be 
the  true  Founder  of  the  United  States. 

Raleigh,  trained  to  politics  under  the  eyes  of  Elizabeth, 
saw  that  the  battle-field  of  the  two  maritime  powers  lay 
in  the  waters  and  along  the  shores  of  the  New  World. 
Europe  was  peopled.  But  the  prairie  and  the  savannah, 
the  forest  and  the  lake  of  America  were  virgin  fields,  the 
homes  of  an  expanding  race,  the  seats  of  a  mighty  empire 
in  the  time  to  come.  Who  shall  occupy  this  splendid 
scene  ?  Shall  the  New  World  become  mainly  English  or 
mainly  Spanish  ?  Shall  the  original  type  and  seed  of  her 
institutions  be  a  Free  Press  or  a  Holy  Office  ?  Such  ques- 
tions throb  and  thrill  in  the  veins  of  Englishmen  of  every 
rank. 

9.  They  answer  with  one  voice.  While  the  Queen 
lived  and  Raleigh  was  free  to  spend  his  genius  and  his 

9.  Smith's  History,  88,  90;  Nova  Britannia,  1609;  Jourdan's  Discovery  of  the 


THE  AMERICAN  PLANTATIONS.  199 


fortune  on  the  work  of  discovery  and  plantation,  it  never  VIII.  9. 
flagged.     But  when  James  came  in,  and,  with  his  dread 

160!). 

of  heroism  and  adventure,  fluhg  the  explorer  of  Guiana,  M  ^ 
the  founder  of  Virginia,  into  the  Tower,  as  a  first  step 
towards  receiving  the  Spanish  ambassador,  Velasco,  with 
proposals  for  a  shameful  peace,  the  old  English  spirit  ap- 
peared to  droop.  Velasco  for  a  time  said  little  of  Vir- 
ginia, for  the  fires  of  the  Armada  and  of  Nieuport  burned 
in  many  hearts ;  but  Lerma,  in  his  letters  to  the  King, 
reserved  an  exclusive  right  of  the  Spanish  crown,  based 
on  a  Papal  bull,  to  all  the  soil  of  the  New  World  from 
Canada  to  Cape  Horn.  "When  his  agents  in  London 
found  their  season  they  made  this  claim  ;  when  his  admi- 
rals in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  felt  their  strength  they  chased 
the  English  from  those  seas  as  pirates.  If  the  Spanish 
cruisers  caught  an  English  crew,  they  either  slung  them 
to  the  yard-arm  or  sent  them  prisoners  to  Spain. 

Ruled  by  a  corporation  of  adventurers,  tormented  by 
these  Spanish  cruisers,  unprotected  by  the  royal  fleets, 
the  settlement  on  the  James  River  falls  to  grief.  A  man 
of  genius,  Captain  John  Smith,  more  than  once  snatches 
it  from  the  jaws  of  death.  But  the  planters  fight  among 
themselves,  depose  Smith  from  power,  and  send  back 
nothing  to  the  Company  save  miserable  complaints  and 
heaps  of  glittering  dust.  The  colony  is  on  the  verge  of 
failure,  when  a  threat  from  Spain  to  descend  on  -the 
Chesapeake  shoots  new  life  into  the  drooping  cause.  All 

Barmudas,  otherwise  called  the  Isle  of  Divels,  by  Sir  T.  Gates,  Sir  G.  Sommcrs, 
and  Captain  Newport,  with  divers  others,  1610. 


200  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VIII.  9.  generous  spirits  rush  to  the  defence  of  Virginia.  Bacon 
joins  the  Company  with  purse  and  voice.  Montgomery, 

Ma  ^  Pembroke,  and  Southampton,  the  noble  friends  of  Shake- 
speare, join  it.  Nor  is  the  Church  less  zealous.  The 
ardent  Abbott,  the  learned  Hackluyt,  lend  their  names. 
Money  pours  in.  A  fleet,  commanded  by  Gates  and 
Somers,  sails  from  the  Thames,  to  meet  on  its  voyage 
at  sea  those  singular  and  poetic  storms  and  trials  which 
add  the  Bermudas  to  our  empire  and  The  Tempest  to 
our  literature. 

10.  One  hundred  and  seventy-five  years  after  Walter 
Raleigh  laid  down  his  life  in  Palace  Yard  for  America, 
his  illustrious  blood  paid  for  by  Gondomar  in  Spanish 
gold,  the  citizens  of  Carolina,  framing  for  themselves  a 
free  constitution,  remembered  the  man  to  whose  genius 
they  owed  their  existence  as  a  state.  They  called  the 
capital  of  their  country  Raleigh.  The  United  States  can 
also  claim  among  their  muster-roll  of  Founders  the  not 
less  noble  name  of  Francis  Bacon.  "Will  the  day  come, 
when,  dropping  such  feeble  names  as  Troy  and  Syracuse, 
the  people  of  the  Great  Republic  will  give  the  august 
and  immortal  name  of  Bacon  to  one  of  their  splendid 
cities  ? 

iGio.        11.  The  session  of  1610  shows  Bacon  in  a  characteristic 
A'ril<     scene.     Bound  by  the  traditions  of  his  place  to  support 

10.  Statutes  of  North  Carolina,  c.  xiv. 

11.  Add.  MSS.,  11,  695;  Lords'  Journals,  ii.  574. 


LIST   OF   GRIEVANCES.  201 

the  King's  measures  in  the  House  of  Commons,  when  the  VIII.  11. 
session  opens,  with  a  freedom  which  surprises  the  King's 
friends,  and  which  Coke  and  Doderidge  have  never  dared 

April. 

to  take,  he  both  speaks  and  votes  against  the  superior 
law-officers  of  the  Crown. 

The  List  of  Grievances  has  at  length  been  shaped  into 
a  proposition,  and  laid  before  the  House.  This  Great 
Contract,  as  the  people  call  it,  offers  to  buy  from  the 
Crown,  either  for  a  fixed  sum  of  money  to  be  paid  down, 
or  for  a  yearly  rental,  certain  rights  and  dues  inherited 
by  the  King  from  feudal  times,  which  the  change  of  man- 
ners and  the  refinements  of  society  have  made  abominable 
to  rich  and  educated  men.  Escutage,  Knight-service, 
Wardship  of  the  body,  Marriage  of  heirs  and  of  widows, 
Respite  of  homage,  Premier  seizin,  every  knight  and  squire 
in  the  land  longs  to  suppress,  as  things  which  yield  the 
King  an  uncertain  income,  but  cover  themselves  with  a 
certain  shame.  A  group  of  feudal  tenures  which  concern 
the  dignity  of  the  Crown,  such  as  Sergeantry,  Homage, 
Fealty,  Wardship  of  land,  and  Livery,  they  propose  to 
modify,  so  as  to  satisfy  just  complaints  while  preserving  to 
the  King  all  services  of  honor  and  ceremonial  rite.  Aids 
to  the  King  they  limit  in  amount ;  suits,  heriots,  and 
escheats  they  leave  untouched  ;  monopolies  for  the  sale 
of  wines,  for  the  licensing  of  inns,  for  the  importation  of 
coal,  they  abrogate.  In  lieu  of  these  reliefs,  they  offer 
the  King  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year. 

12.  At  first  James  will  not  listen.     The  terms  of  such  a 
9* 


202  FRANCIS   BACON. 

Till.  12.  contract  touch,  he  says,  his  honor.  These  privileges  may 
be  of  no  moment  to  the  Crown  ;  to  part  with  them  may 
^'  neither  lower  its  dignity  nor  abate  its  pride  ;  yet  why 
should  he  be  asked  to  part  with  them?  Elizabeth  had 
them.  All  the  Plantagenets,  all  the  Tudors  had  them. 
Why  should  the  first  of  the  Stuarts  strip  his  Crown  of 
privileges  held  by  his  predecessors  for  five  hundred  years  ? 
But  James  is  not  true  to  his  own  folly.  To  resist  a  sale 
of  the  rags  and  dust  of  feudal  power,  if  done  on  the 
ground  of  conscience,  would  to  many  seem  respectable, 
to  some  heroic  ;  but  the  offer  of  a  hundred  thousand 
pounds  a  year  tempts  a  man  dogged  by  duns  to  compro- 
mise with  his  sense  of  right.  He  lends  his  ear ;  he  hints 
his  willingness  to  treat.  Will  the  Commons  give  a  little 
more  ?  Will  they  take  a  little  less  ?  If  so,  he  will  hear 
them ;  if  not,  not.  Cecil  asks  Fleming  and  Coke  to  de- 
clare whether  James  can  lawfully  sell  the  burdens  on 
tenures,  yet  preserve  to  his  Crown  the  tenures  themselves. 

13.  The  chance  of  hurting  Bacon,  who  pleads  in  office, 
as  he  always  spoke  when  out  of  office,  for  the  full  sur- 
render of  these  feudal  dues,  is  too  much  for  Coke.  Their 
feud  has,  indeed,  grown  fiercer  as  they  have  grown  in 
years,  flashing  out  even  in  the  courts  of  law.  "  The  less 
you  speak  of  your  own  greatness,"  says  Bacon  in  open 
court,  "  the  more  I  shall  think  of  it,  and  the  more,  the 
less."  As  Bacon  contends  that  a  sale  of  the  burdens  on 

12.  Add.  MSS.,  11,  695;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  419,  420. 

13.  Spedding's  Bacon,  vii.  177;  Add.  MSS.,  11,  695. 


DEBATE  ON  FEUDAL  TENURES.  203 

tenures  is  in  fact  a  sale  of  the  tenures,  Coke  answers  VIII.  13. 
Cecil  that  the  King  may,  if  it  shall  please  him,  sell  the 
burdens,  yet  keep  the  tenures  intact.     James  therefore        ril' 
sends  to  tell  the  Commons  that  he  will  sell  to  them  for 
six  hundred  thousand  pounds  paid  down,  and  a  rental  of 
two  hundred  thousand  pounds  a  year,  his  rights  of  mar- 
riage, wardship,  premier  seizin,  respite  of  homage,  and 
reliefs. 

14.  In  these  debates,  the  Solicitor-General,  brushing 
away  the  distinctions  of  Coke  and  Fleming,'  urges  on  the 
House  of  Commons  and  on  the  Crown  the  wisdom  of 
abolishing  these  feudal  tenures  both  in  name  and  fact. 
Tenures  in  capite  and  by  knight-service,  he  says,  have 
lost  their  virtue.     When   the    sovereign   summoned  his 
liegemen  to  the  field,  Reason  might  have  cried,  —  Hold 
fast  all  tenures  which  augment  the  national  force  !     But 
the   King  no   longer  leads   his   armies   in   the  field  or 
calls  his  vassals  round  his  flag ;  war  has  grown  into  a 
science,   arms   into    a   profession ;   if  an   enemy   should 
appear  at  Dover  or  Berwick,  no  man  would  now  wait 
for  the  King's  tenant  to  strike.     In  the  musters  for  de- 
fence, holders  in  soccage  stand  foot  to  foot  with  holders 
by  knight-service.     In   feudal   ages   the   tenures   meant 
defence ;  but  the  usage  and  the  idea  has  alike  gone  by  ; 
and  tenures  no  longer  represent  either  force,  honor,  or 
obedience. 

• 

15.  Bacon  pleads  so  well  that  after  warm  debates  the    juiy  23. 

14.  Bacon's  Speech,  April,  1610;  Lords'  Jour.,  ii.  580. 


204  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VIII.  15.  King  consents  to  reduce  his  demands,  the  House  of  Com- 
mons  to  raise  their  price.     The  two  powers  draw  nearer 

jui-23    *°  eacn  °^nerj  an^  a  naPP7  resolution  seems  about  to 
/  cleanse  away  some  of  the  very  worst  abuses  of  the  feudal 
state.     For  two  hundred  thousand   pounds  a  year  the 
Crown  agrees  to  renounce  forever  these  feudal  rights. 

How  this  Great  Contract  comes  to  an  abrupt  and  igno- 
minious end,  how  King  and  Commons  wrangle  over 
the  Book  of  Rates,  and  how  a  session  that  began  so  pros- 
perously closes  in  open  strife  between  the  people  and 
their  prince,*  not  a  single  bill  receiving  the  royal  signa- 
ture, all  this,  though  full  of  constitutional,  and  even  of 
romantic  interest,  is  a  tale  for  the  historian  of  England, 
not  for  the  critic  of  Bacon's  life. 

1612.  16.  So  long  as  his  kinsman  Cecil  lives,  Bacon  sees  no 
hope  of  rising  in  the  world.*  In  May,  1612,  the  Earl  of 
Salisbury,  Lord  Treasurer  of  England,  premier  Sec- 
retary of  State,  and  Master  of  the  Court  of  Wards s 
worn  out  by  fag  of  brain  not  less  than  by  disease  of  blood, 
dies,  and  a  burst  of  gladness  breaks  over  court  and  coun- 
try at  the  news.  His  companions  of  the  Privy  Council 
traduce  his  fame,  his  tenants  at  Hatfield  attack  his  park. 
Of  all  men  living,  the  cousin  he  so  deeply  hurt  is  the  least 
unjust.  In  an  edition  of  the  Essays,  now  in  the  press, 
Bacon  paints  him  to  the  life  :  every  one  knows  the  por- 

15.  King's  Proclamation,  Dec.  31,  1610;  Add.  MSS.,  11,  695;  Lords'  Jour.,  ii. 
666  -  66 ;  Statutes  of  the  Realm,  iv.  1207. 

16.  Bacon's  Essays,  xliv. ;  Apophthegms,  Works,  vii.  175. 


HIS   OPINION   OF   CECIL.  205 

trait ;  yet  no  one  can  pronounce  this  picture  of  a  small,  VIII.  16. 

shrewd  man  of  the  world,  a  clerk  in  soul,  without  a  spark 

of  fire,  a  dash  of  generosity  in  his  nature,  unfair  or  even     Ma 

unkind.     The   spirit  of  it  runs  in  a  famous  anecdote. 

"  Now  tell  me  truly,"  says  the  King,  "  what  think  you 

of  your  cousin  that  is  gone  ?  "     "  Sir,"  answers  Bacon, 

"  since  your  Majesty  charges  me,  I  '11  give  you  such  a 

character  of  him  as  if  I  were  to  write  his  story.     I  do 

think  he  was  no  fit  councillor  to  make  your  affairs  better. 

But  yet   he   was   fit  to  have  kept  them  from  growing 

worse." 

"  On  my  so'l,  man ! "  says  James,  "  in  the  first  thou 
speakest  like  a  true  man,  in  the  second,  like  a  kins- 
man." 

17.  From  the  day  of  Cecil's  death,  his  prospects, 
clouded  till  now,  begin  to  clear.  If  promotion  pauses, 
it  is  only  because  the  crowds  of  suitors  perplex  the 
King.  Carr  and  Northampton  claim  the  Treasurer's 
staff.  Everybody  begs  the  Court  of  Wards  and  Liveries. 
Sir  Thomas  Lake,  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  Sir  Ralph  Win- 
wood,  Sir  Henry  Neville,  each  aspires  to  the  rank  of 
Secretary  of  State.  The  patriots  put  up  Bacon's  name 
for  this  great  office,  and  shrewd  observers  fancy  him 
nigh  success.  Poor  James,  unable  to  decide,  hankering, 
though  afraid,  to  make  Carr  his  chief  minister,  puts 
the  Treasury  into  commission  for  six  months,  gives  the 
Wards  to  Carew,  and  startles  the  gossips  i>f  Whitehall 

17.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Nov.  26, 1612,  S.  P.  0. 


206  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VIII.  17.  by  announcing  that,  instead  of  employing  either  Bacon 
or  Wotton,  Win  wood  or  Lake,  he  means  for  the  future 
to  be  his  own  Secretary  of  State. 

NOV.  18.  Carew  dying  suddenly  six  months  after  his  nom- 
ination, Bacon  applies  for  the  Court  of  Wards.  His 
pay  as  Solicitor-General  is  only  seventy  pounds  a  year. 
Promised  for  his  service  to  the  Crown  a  place  of  profit, 
he  points  out  in  a  letter  to  Carr  that  the  Court  of 
Wards  is  one  for  a  lawyer  rather  than  a  courtier  to 
hold. 

BACON  TO  LORD  ROCHESTER. 

Nov._14,  1612. 
IT  MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  GOOD   LORDSHIP,  — 

This  Mastership  of  the  Wards  is  like  a  mist,  —  some- 
times it  goeth  upwards  and  sometimes  it  falleth  down- 
wards. If  it  go  up  to  great  lords,  then  it  is  as  it  was 
at  the  first ;  if  it  fall  down  to  mean  men,  then  it  is 
as  it  was  at  the  last.  But  neither  of  these  ways  con- 
cerns me  in  particular,  —  but  if  it  should  in  a  middle 
region  go  to  lawyers,  then  I  beseech  your  Lordship  have 
some  care  of  .me.  The  attorney  and  solicitor  are  as 
the  King's  champions  for  civil  business,  and  they  had 
need  have  some  place  of  rest  in  their  eye  for  their  en- 
couragement. The  Mastership  of  the  Rolls,  which  was 
the  ordinary  place  kept  for  them,  is  gone  from  them. 

18.  Bacon  to  Carr,  Nov.  14, 1612,  S.  P.  0.;  Lake  to  Carleton  Nov.  19,  1612, 
Venetian  MSS.,  S.  P.  0. 


FAILURE   OF   HIS   SUIT.  207 

,If  this  place  should  go  to  a  lawyer,  and  not  to  them,  VIII.  18. 
their   hopes   must   diminish.     Thus   I   rest,  your  Lord- 
ship's affectionate,  to  do  you  humble  service,  ^ 

F.  BACON. 

He  feels  so  certain  of  this  suit  that  he  orders  the 
new  clothes  for  his  servants ;  yet  the  suit  fails.  He 
wants  the  Court  of  Wards  and  Liveries  as  a  right,  and 
will  not  buy  it.  Sir  Walter  Cope,  a  man  of  larger 
fortunes  and  smaller  scruples,  while  Bacon  alleges  ser- 
vice, tells  down  his  money  and  buys  the  place.  The 
wags  of  the  Mitre  have  their  laugh.  "  Sir  Walter," 
they  say,  "  has  got  the  Wards,  Sir  Francis  the  Liv- 
eries." 

19.  If  he  sue  without  success  for  the  Court  of  Wards,     1613. 
he    is    constantly   consulted   or   employed   in   the   most 
weighty,    the    most    delicate    business    of   the    Crown. 
Most  conspicuous,  perhaps,  of  the  cases  which  now  en- 
gage his  mind  is  the  old,  old  story  of  Irish  broils. 

Of  Ireland  itself  he  never  speaks  but  in  words  of 
tenderness  and  grief.  With  him  the  green,  lustrous 
island  is  "a  country  blessed  with  almost  all  the  dowries 
of  nature,  —  with  rivers,  havens,  woods,  quarries,  good 
soil,  temperate  climate,  and  a  race  and  generation  of 
men,  valiant,  hard,  and  active,  as  it  is  not  easy  to  find 
such  confluence  of  commodities,  if  the  hand  of  man 
did  join  with  the  hand  of  nature ;  but  they  severed,  — 

19.  Bacon  to  Carr,  Nov.  14, 1612,  S.  P.  0. 


208  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VIII.  19.  the  harp  of  Ireland  is  not  strung  or  attuned  to  con- 
cord."    More  the  pity,  thinks  its  generous  and  sagacious 


1613. 

Aug. 


20.  Sir  Arthur  Chichester,  the  wisest,  firmest  man 
ever  sent  from  England  to  rule  the  Celt, —  after  driv- 
ing out  the  rebels  O'Neile  and  O'Douiiel,  crushing 
O'Dogherty  and  the  assassins  who  ravished  and  de- 
stroyed Derry,  —  has  built  a  new  city  on  Lough  Foyle, 
garrisoned  and  calmed  Strabane,  Bally  shannon,  Omagh, 
and  the  forts  along  the  lines  from  Kerry  to  Inishoan, 
and  peopled  with  the  germs  of  a  new  race  the  wastes 
of  Antrim  and  Down,  of  Londonderry  and  Coleraine. 
Strong  in  his  genius  and  in  his  success,  after  founding 
an  English  state  in  Ulster  on  the  ruins  of  the  great 
Celtic  insurrection,  he  calls  a  Parliament  in  Dublin  to 
sanction  what  has  been  done,  and  to  resume,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  remembrance  of  living  men,  a  regular 
mode  of  civil  and  popular  government.  For  seven  years 
he  has  ruled  by  the  sword.  He  wishes  to  lay  it  down. 
But  blood  is  hot  and  feuds  run  high.  The  Saxon  and 
the  Celt,  the  Protestant  and  the  Papist,  meet  in  Dublin, 
less  disposed  to  sit  on  the  same  benches  and  hear  each 
other  prate  than  to  pluck  out  the  sharp  skean  and  fly 
at  each  other's  throats.  At  the  first  meeting  they  fall 
to  blows.  One  party  says  Sir  John  Everard  shall  be 


20.  An  Account  of  the  Right  Hon.  Sir  Arthur  Chichester,  Lord  Belfast,  Lord 
Deputy  of  Ireland;  by  Sir  Faithful  Fortescue:  with  Notes  and  a  Memoir  of  the 
Writer  by  Lord  Clermont}  1858.  Ellis's  Orig.  Letters,  Third  Series,  iy.  173. 


CHICHESTER'S  IRISH   GOVERNMENT.  209 

Speaker ;  the  other,  Sir  John  Davis.  Everard  is  in  VIII.  20. 
opposition,  Davis  the  Irish  Attorney-General ;  Everard 
the  candidate  of  the  monks,  Davis  of  the  Crown.  Chi-  An_ 
Chester  can  but  follow  the  Imperial  law.  Usage  good 
in  Westminster  must  be  held  good  in  Dublin.  Davis 
must  be  Speaker.  Indeed,  the  majority  elect  him.  But 
a  crowd  of  men,  summoned  from  the  Bog  of  Allen, 
from  the  banks  of  Lough  Swilly,  from  the  wilds  of 
Sli^o  and  Mayo,  —  representatives  of  the  MacOiraghtys 
and  MacCoghlans,  of  the  O'Doghertys,  O'Donnels,  and 
O'Concannons, — who  have  scarcely  ever  heard  of  a  pre- 
cedent, have  not  learned  to  respect  a  majority  of  votes. 
When  the  Protestants  file  into  the  right  lobby,  instead 
of  filing  into  the  left  the  Roman  Catholic  members  seat 
Everard  in  the  chair.  They  refuse  to  move  or  to  be 
counted  like  a  drove  of  sheep !  Davis,  voted  into  the 
chair  by  a  majority  of  twenty-eighj;,  is  taken  up  to  his 
seat  by  two  members,  as  in  the  English  House  of  Com- 
mons. Everard  will  not  stir.  Davis  plumps  into  his 
lap.  In  a  wild  Irish  uproar,  Everard,  caught  by  the 
crowd,  is  thrust  out  neck  and  crop.  The  Celtic  mem- 
bers grasp  their  skeans.  If  Chichester,  wise  in  time, 
had  not  prudently  set  them  in  a  ring  of  steel,  the  mem- 
bers, instead  of  hearing  each  other's  grievances,  would 
have  cut  each  other's  throats.  Such  a  House  of  Com- 
mons is  an  impracticable  instrument  for  preserving  the 
peace  of  Ireland,  and  Chichester  dissolves  it.  On  the 
evening  of  the  row,  to  show  his  scorn  of  such  brab- 
bles, the  Lord  Deputy  goes  out  to  play  his  usual  rubber. 

N 


210  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VIII.  21.  21.  Everard  and  his  friends  come  over  to  complain  at 
Whitehall.  They  talk  of  their  wrongs.  They  object 
to  tne  new  boroughs  planted  by  the  English;  they  re- 
quire that  these  boroughs  shall  not  be  allowed  to  send 
representatives  to  an  Irish  House  of  Commons  !  They 
whine  of  danger  to  their  persons,  of  a  Gunpowder  Plot 
to  blow  them  into  the  sky. 

The  King  consults  Bacon.  Anxious  for  Parliaments, 
but  aware  that  Parliaments  presuppose  habits  of  order 
and  discussion,  respect  for  opinion,  submission  to  majori- 
ties, Bacon  gives  the  King  this  advice :  - 


BACON  TO  JAMES. 

Aug.  13,  1613. 
MAY  IT  PLEASE  YOUE  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY, — 

I  was  at  my  house  in  the  country  what  time  the  com- 
mission and  instructions  for  Ireland  were  drawn  by  Mr. 
Attorney,  but  I  was  present  this  day  the  forenoon,  when 
they  were  read  before  my  Lords  and  excepted.to,  some 
points  whereof  use  was  made,  and  some  alterations  fol- 
lowed, but  I  could  not  in  decency  except  to  as  much  as 
I  thought  there  might  be  cause,  lest  it  might  be  thought 
a  humor  of  contradiction  or  an  effect  of  emulation, 
which,  I  thank  God,  I  am  not  much  troubled  with,  for, 
so  your  Majesty's  business  be  well  done,  whosoever  be  the 
instrument,  I  rest  joyful.  But  because  this  is  a  tender 
piece  of  service,  and  that  which  was  well  directed  by 

21.  Abbot,  Aug.  4, 1613,  S.  P.  0.;  Add.  MSS.  19,  402,  fol.  87. 


ADVICE  CONCERNING  IRELAND.  211 

your  Majesty's  high  wisdom  may  be  marred  in  the  man-  VIII.  21. 
age,  and  that  I  have  been  so  happy  as  to  have  my  poor 
service  in  this  business  of  Ireland,  which  I  have  mind-  Ang  13 
ed  with  all  my  powers,  because  I  thought  your  estate 
labored,  graciously  accepted  by  your  sacred  Majesty,  I 
do  presume  to  present  to  your  Majesty's  remembrance 
(whom  I  perceive  to  be  one  of  the  most  truly  politic 
princes  that  ever  reigned,  and  the  greatest  height  of 
my  poor  abilities  is  but  to  understand  you  well)  some 
few  points  in  a  memorial  enclosed  which  I  wish  to  be 
changed.  They  tend  to  this  scope  principally,  that  I 
think  it  safest  for  your  Majesty  at  this  time,  hoc  agere, 
which  is  to  effect  that  you  may  hold  a  parliament  in  Ire- 
land with  sovereignty,  concord,  contentment,  and  mod- 
erate freedom,  and  so  bind  up  the  wound  made  without 
clogging  the  commission  with  too  many  other  matters  . .  . 
whereas  these  instruments  are  are  so  marshalled  as  if  the 
grievances  were  the  principal.  The  grievances  which 
were  not  commended  to  these  messengers  from  the  party 
in  Ireland,  but  slept  at  least  a  month  after  their  coming 
hither,  and  .  .  .  are  divers  of  them  of  so  vulgar  a  nature 
as  they  are  complained  of  both  in  England  and  Ireland, 
and  both  now  and  at  all  times.  For  your  Majesty  to  give 
way  upon  this  ground,  to  so  particular  an  inquiry  of  all 
these  points,  I  confess  I  think  is  unworthy  of  majesty,  for 
they  are  set  down  like  interrogatories  in  a  suit  in  law. 
And  my  fear  is  they  will  call  up  and  stir  such  a  number 
of  complaints  and  petitions,  which  not  being  possible  to 
be  satisfied,  this  commission,  meant  for  satisfaction,  will 


212  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VIII.  21.  end  in  murmur.     But  these  things  which  I  write  are  per- 
haps  but  my  errors  and  simplicities.      Your  Majesty's 

IfttS 

wisdom  must  steer  and  ballast  the  ship.     So  most  hum- 

Atig.  13. 

bly  craving  pardon,  I  ever  rest  your  Majesty's  most  de- 
voted and  faithful  subject  and  servant, 

FR.  BACON. 

Government  acts  on  this  counsel  of  maintaining  in 
Dublin  a  firm  and  inflexible  justice.  A  Parliament  meets 
within  twelve  months,  the  members  of  which  quarrel 
indeed  among  themselves,  as  is  only  national  and  natu- 
ral ;  but  which  proves  itself  as  capable  of  transacting 
public  business  as  almost  any  Parliament  in  Palace  Yard. 
It  gives  peace  to  Ireland  for  thirty  years. 

For  nearly  all  that  is  most  gracious  and  noble,  most 
wise  and  foreseeing  in  the  Irish  policy  of  the  Crown  in 
this  reign,  thanks  are  due,  next  after  Arthur  Chichester, 
to  Francis  Bacon.  Yet  Lord  Campbell,  a  statesman  and 
a  lawyer,- has  not  one  word  on  this  theme ! 

oct  21.  22.  Two  years  of  fag  and  moil  cure  James  of  his  am- 
bition to  be  thought  the  best  scribe  in  Christendom. 
Dissolving  the  commission  of  the  Treasury,  he  gives  the 
Staff  to  Northampton.  He  brings  "Winwood  forward  as 
Secretary  of  State  ;  but  ere  passing  his  commission  under 
the  Seal,  James  raises  his  great  competitor  for  that  post 
a  step  in  his  profession ;  Coke  going  up  to  the  King's 

22.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Oct.  14,  27,  1614,  S.  P.  0.;  Grant  Book,  102; 
Bacon's  Apophthegms  in  Resuscitatio,  38. 


MADE   ATTORNEY-GENERAL.  213 

Bench,  Hobart  to  the  Common  Pleas,  and  Bacon  to  the  Vin.  32. 
Attorney's  place.     Coke  huffs  at  the   King's  Bench,  a 
court  of  higher  dignity  than  the  Common  Pleas,  but  of    Oct  ^ 
fewer  fees.     James  has  to  interfere.     "  This  is  all  your 
doing,   Mr.   Attorney,"    says  the   irascible   Lord   Chief 
Justice  ;   "it  is  you   that  have  made  this  great  stir." 
With  the  light  laugh  that  has  so  often  maddened  Coke, 
he  answers,  "  Your  Lordship  all  this  while  hath,  grown 
in  breadth  ;  you  must  needs  now  grow  in  height,  or  you 
will  be  a  monster." 

23.  Lord  Campbell  sees  in  these  promotions,  not  the  NOV. 
natural  changes  brought  about  by  time,  such  as  every 
year  occur  at  the  bar,  but  a  mean  trick,  a  court  intrigue, 
an  affair  of  secret  letters,  of  back-stairs  interest,  in  short, 
a  dodge  and  a  cheat !  To  this  reading  of  events  may  be 
opposed  the  judgments  of  those  among  Bacon's  contem- 
poraries who  know  him  best,  the  electors  of  the  University 
of  Cambridge,  the  members  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
Their  judgments,  happily  for  us,  are  given  in  a  very 
conspicuous  and  decisive  way. 

Bacon's  first  advice  to  the  Crown  in  his  new  office  is  to 
abandon  its  irregular,  unproductive  methods  of  raising       , 
funds,  inventions  of  the  Meercrafts  and  Overreaches  of 


23.  Mem.  of  Burgesses  chosen  for  more  than  one  place,  April,  1614,  S.  P.  0. 
Bacon's  biographers  have  heen  misled  about  his  seat  in  1614  by  an  erroneous 
conjecture  of  Willis  (Not.  Parl.,  iii.  173).  There  is  a  list  of  the  Parliament  of 
1614  among  the  valuable  MSS.  at  Kimbolton  Castle,  for  which,  as  for  many 
other  courtesies,  I  am  indebted  to  the  obliging  friendship  of  his  Grace-the  Duke 
of  Manchester. 


214  FRANCIS  BACON. 

VIII.  23.  the  court ;  to  call  a  new  Parliament  to  Westminster,  to 
explain  frankly  the  political  situation,  and  to  trust  the 
March  nati°n  f°r  supplies.  The  advice,  though  hotly  opposed 
by  Northampton  and  the  whole  gang  of  Spanish  pension- 
ers, men  paid  to  provoke  hostility  between  the  Commons 
and  the  Crown,  so  far  prevails  that  writs  go  down  into 
the  country.  For  thirteen  years  Bacon  has  represented 
Ipswich  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Ipswich  clings  to 
him  with  the  love  of  a  bride.  But  Cambridge,  a  more 
splendid  and  gracious  constituency,  claims  him  for  its 
own.  In  the  ambition  of  a  public  man  there  is  nothing 
more  pure  than  the  wish  to  represent  in  Parliament  the 
University  at  which  he  has  been  trained ;  nor  is  there 
for  the  scholar  and  -the  writer  any  reward  more  lofty 
than  the  confidence  implied  in  the  votes  of  a  great  con- 
stituency of  scholars  and  gentlemen.  In  Bacon's  case 
there  are  peculiar  obstacles.  He  left  Cambridge  early 
and  in  disdain  ;  he  has  kept  no  friendly  intercourse  with 
its  dons  ;  the  business  of  his  intellectual  life  has  been  to 
destroy  the  grounds  on  which  its  system  of  instruction 
stands.  Yet  the  members  of  the  University  feel  that  as 
a  writer  and  a  philosopher  he  is  not  only  the  most  bril- 
liant Cambridge  man  alive,  but  the  most  brilliant  Eng- 
lishman who  ever  lived.  They  elect  him. 

The  burgesses  of  Ipswich  also  elect  him.  The  bur- 
gesses of  St.  Albans  also  elect  him.  Such  a  return  is 
unprecedented  in  parliamentary  annals.  Only  the  most 
popular  and  patriotic  candidates  are  rewarded  in  this 
Parliament  by  double  returns.  Sandes  is  elected  for 


TRIPLE  RETURN  TO   PARLIAMENT.  215 

Hendon  and  Rochester,  Whitelocke  for  Woodstock  and  VIII.  23. 
Corffe  Castle.     No  one  save  the  new  Attorney-General 

c        ,   .   ,  1614. 

can  boast  of  a  triple  return.  Mareh 

Of  course  he  sits  for  Cambridge  ;  a  fact,  overlooked  by 
his  biographers,  from  Rawley  to  Lord  Campbell,  which 
connects  his  fame  in  a  gentle  and  gracious  form  with 
the  political  history  of  Cambridge. 

24.  Nor  is  this  gracious  confidence  of  his  University  April, 
the  most  striking  proof  of  popularity  which  he  now  re- 
ceives. When  the  Houses  meet  in  April,  a  whisper 
buzzes  round  the  benches  that  the  elections  for  Cam- 
bridge, Ipswich,  and  St.  Albans  are  null  and  void.  No 
man  holding  the  office  of  Attorney-General  has  ever  been 
elected  to  serve  in  Parliament,  and  some  of  the  members 
seem  resolved  that  so  powerful  an  officer  of  the  Crown 
never  ought  to  sit,  and  never  shall  sit,  in  that  House. 
The  Attorney-General  is  the  Crown  trier  ;  he  sets  the  law 
in  motion ;  he  gathers  the  evidence,  weighs  the  words, 
sifts  the  facts  for  prosecution.  Unless  scrupulous  beyond 
the  virtue  of  man,  such  an  officer,  hearing  everything, 
noting  everything,  forgetting  nothing,  may  become,  in  a 
House  of  Commons  bent  on  free  speech  as  its  sacred 
right,  the  worst  of  inquisitors  and  tyrants.  He  shall  not 
sit.  Yet,  notwithstanding  their  jealousy  of  power,  the 
representative  gentlemen  of  England  have  no  heart  to 
put  the  wisest  and  best  among  them  to  the  door.  They 

24.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  April  14,  1614,  S.  P.  0.;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  456; 
Statutes  of  the  Realm,  iv.  1207. 


216  FRANCIS   BACON. 

VDI.  24.  seek  for  precedents,  that  he  may  sit.     No  case  is  on  the 
rolls.     An  Attorney-General,  chosen  after  his  nomination, 

1fi14 

April'  cannot  sit  by  precedent.  What  then  ?  They  waive  their 
right.  They  take  him  as  he  is.  Crown  lawyer  or  not 
Crown  lawyer,  he  is  Sir  Francis  Bacon.  As  Sir  Francis 
Bacon  he  shall  sit.  But  the  case  shall  stand  alone.  This 
tribute  paid  to  personal  merit  and  public  service  must 
not  be  drawn,  say  the  applauding  members,  into  a  pre- 
cedent dangerous  to  their  franchise.  He  is  the  first  to 
sit,  he  must  be  the  last. 

That  an  exception  in  favor  of  the  new  Attorney-Gen- 
eral should  have  been  made  by  men  so  hostile  to  the 
court  that  they  broke  up  at  last  without  passing  a  single 
bill  which  the  Crown  could  assent  to,  is  most  strange. 
The  results  are  yet  more  strange.  As  if  to  witness  to 
the  latest  generations  the  profound  estimation  in  which 
Bacon  was  held  by  a  House  of  Commons  which  had 
known  him  closely  for  thirty  years,  and  which  had  seen 
him  vote  and  act  under  every  form  of  temptation  that 
can  test  the  virtue  and  tax  the  genius  of  a  public  man, 
this  exception,  made  in  his  favor  solely,  became  the  rule 
for  his  successors  and  for  succeeding  times.  Once  only 
has  the  restriction  been  referred  to  in  the  House.  That 
was  in  the  case  of  his  immediate  successor.  Since  his 
time  the  presence  of  the  Attorney-General  among  the 
representatives  of  the  people  has  been  constant.  This 
fact  suggests  not  only  that  a  change  has  taken  place  in 
public  thought,  but  that  the  character  of  the  Crown 
official  has  undergone  a  change.  Such  is  the  truth. 


TRIPLE   RETURN  TO  PARLIAMENT.  217 

Before  Bacon's  day  the  Attorney-General  was  the  per-  VIII.  24. 
sonal  servant  of  the  prince :  from  Bacon's  day  he  has 
been  the  servant  of  the  State.     Bacon  was  the  first  of 

Apnl. 

a  new  order  of  public  men.  The  fact  is  scarcely  less 
creditable  to  his  political  purity  than  the  composition 
of  the  Novum  Organum  is  glorious  to  his  intellectual 
powers.  Bad  men  kill  great  offices.  Good  men  found 
them. 


10 


218  FRANCIS  BACON. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

ST.   JOHN  AND    PEACHAM. 

IX- 1.  1.  IF  Lord  Campbell  has  not  one  word  to  say  on 
—  Bacon's  part  in  the  plantation  of  Virginia,  in  the  regen- 
1614'  eration  of  Ulster,  he  has  room  for  page  after  page  of 

Oct.  11. 

statement,  more  or  less  false  in  fact,  wholly  false  in  spirit, 
on  the  examination  into  the  contempt  of  Oliver  St.  John, 
and  on  the  trial  for  libel  of  Edmond  Peacham. 

Happy  the  great  lawyer  who  in  passionate  times  can 
give  up  office  with  no  worse  recollection  on  his  soul  than 
having  conducted  two  such  cases  for  the  Crown  ! 

2.  First  of  Oliver  St.  John.  In  the  session  of  1614, 
as  in  every  session  when  he  was  out  of  office,  Bacon  puts 
his  strength  to  the  supplies.  The  day  which  he  has .  so 
long  feared  has  come  ;  the  Papal  powers,  united  over  the 
corpse  of  Henri  Quatre,  have  formed  their  league  ;  Spi- 
nola's  Pandours  and  Walloons  are  crushing  out  the  free, 
industrial,  and  religious  life  of  the  Lower  Rhine.  A 
dozen  cities  lift  their  hands  for  help.  Battalions  clash 
down  the  passes  of  the  Alps  and  the  Pyrenees,  armadas 

1.  Campbell,  Life  of  Bacon,  iii.  62  -  66. 

2.  St.  John  to  Mayor  of  Marlborough,  Oct.  11, 1614,  S.  P.  0. 


THE   PAPAL  LEAGUE.  219 

ride  in  the  roads  of  Sicily  and  in  the  bays  of  Spain.  The  IX.  2. 
English  fleet  is  rotting  in  port.  Only  ten  or  twelve  ships 
are  in  commission  ;  four  in  the  Thames  or  the  Downs,  Oet  n 
one  or  two  at  Portsmouth  and  Plymouth,  four  in  the 
Irish  seas.  The  Crown  is  deep  in  debt.  To  a  man  not 
mad  with  jealousy  of  power  such  a  political  situation 
must  be  intolerable,  and  it  is  intolerable  to  Bacon.  But 
the  Puritans  are  deaf.  They  fear  the  King  even  more 
than  the  Roman  League.  They  will  not  give.  Unable 
to  procure  grants  from  Parliament,  James  tries  to  raise 
money  by  a  benevolence  ;  when  the  lords,  the  bishops,  and 
archbishops,  come  to  his  aid,  bringing  cups,  rings,  and 
golden  angels  into  the  Jewel  House  of  the  Tower.  All 
mayors  of  towns  are  ordered  to  receive  such  gifts  as  may 
be  offered.  No  rate  is  laid  ;  no  one  is  forced  to  give  ;  at 
least,  so  say  the  officers  of  the  Crown.  In  loyal  shires 
persuasion  may  be  used  to  swell  the  lists  ;  but  where  the 
magistrates  are  not  loyal,  the  benevolence  flags.  Many 
of  the  Puritans,  all  the  Papists,  close  their  hands ;  those 
distrusting  the  court ;  these  wishing  well  to  the  foe.  The 
benevolence  fares  best  in  the  Protestant  shires;  worst 
in  the  Catholic  shires.  Kent,  Surrey,  Middlesex,  Herts, 
Berks,  Essex,  and  Norfolk  yield  an  army  of  subscribers. 
Sussex  sends  up  only  three  ;  Durham,  Cumberland,  West- 
moreland, not  one.  Now,  it  is  clear  that  those  who  op- 
pose a  Parliamentary  vote  may  fairly  decline  to  make  a 
free  gift.  But  Oliver  St.  John,  Black  Oliver  his  contem- 
poraries call  him,  from  his  bilious  temper  and  dark  com- 
plexion, is  not  content  merely  to  decline.  A  man  of  a 


220  FBANCIS  BACON. 

IX.  2.  stormy  and  yet  slavish  spirit,  he  must  denounce  this 
measure  of  the  government  by  voice  and  pen.  He  will 

1  /M  j 

Ocfcl^  not  let  the  people  give.  In  a  public  letter  to  the  Mayor 
of  Marlborough  he  declares  that  the  King,  in  asking  his 
people  for  a  free  gift  of  money,  is  violating  his  oath,  com- 
mitting a  perjury  more  gross  than  that  for  which  more 
than  one  English  monarch  has  lost  his  crown! 

Dec.  3.  It  is  impossible  for  the  Privy  Council  to  overlook 
such  a  contempt.  The  lawfulness  of  a  Benevolence  may 
be  open  to  debate ;  no  true  Englishman  can  doubt  that 
St.  John's  letter  is  in  the  highest  degree  scandalous  to 
the  King,  and  in  the  highest  degree  injurious  to  the  na- 
tional force.  Lord  Campbell  (who  confounds  this  Oliver 
St.  John  with  the  famous  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, now  a  boy  of  sixteen  !)  appears  to  regard  St. 
John  as  an  earlier  Hampden.  A  closer  reading  of  the 
time  would  show  that  he  was  one  of  those  loud  and  lying 
politicians  who  are  the  disgrace  of  every  cause.  Instead 
of  being  the  Hampden,  Black  Oliver  was  the  O'Brien  or 
the  O'Connor  of  his  time  ;  though  he  had  neither  Smith 
O'Brien's  abilities  nor  Feargus  O'Connor's  dash.  When 
the  Marlborough  bully  is  cited  into  the  Star  Chamber, 
Coke  condemns  him  to  five  thousand  pounds  fine  and 
imprisonment  for  life.  Yet  even  the  Tower,  which  so 
often  elevates  a  fool  into  a  martyr,  fails  to  make  St.  John 

3.  Council  Reg.,  Nov.  19,  25,  Dec.  4,  9, 1614,  Feb.  8,  May  31,  1615;  Chamber- 
lain to  Carleton,  Jan.  5,  Feb.  9, 1615,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  to  James,  Feb.  8, 1615, 
S.  P.  0.;  Add.  MS  S.  19,  402. 


CASE   OF   OLIVER   ST.   JOHN.  221 

appear,  even  to  the  undiscerning  mob,  either  a  wise  or  a    IX.  3. 
brave  man.     When  the  gate  of  his  cell  creaks  on  its  hinge 
he  begins  to  whine  and  cry.     He  repents  his  sally,  recants     ^ 
his  words.     He  goes  on  his  knees,  he  pledges  his  future 
fame.     He  begs,  fawns,  groans  to  be  let  out.     Even  those 
who  make  an  idol  of  every  one  barred  in  the  Tower  turn 
from  this  pusillanimous  and  crouching  prisoner  in  disgust. 

4.  One  of  St.  John's  letters  to  the  King  is  so  amaz- 
ingly abject  as  to  constitute  a  curiosity  in  literature. 
In  England  we  are  not  used  to  such  a  style  of  prison 
supplication,  for  the  men  who  go  wrong  generally  have 
the  merit  of  going  wrong  in  good  faith,  and  when 
called  to  the  martyr's  crown  wear  it  as  a  crown.  It 
may  be  well  to  give  a  passage  from  this  document  (now 
for  the  first  time  printed),  that  the  world  may  note, 
under  his  own  seal,  what  kind  of  hero  this  Oliver  St. 
John  is,  whom  Lord  Campbell  mistakes  for  the  great 
Chief  Justice  ! 

OLIVER  ST.  JOHN  TO  THE  KING. 

Most  High  and  Mighty  King,  my  alone  virtually  and 
rightfully  dread  Lord  and  Sovereign  (after  God  my 
Maker  and  my  Saviour  Jesus  Christ),  my  hearty  chief 
joy,  love,  slave,  and  delight ! 

In  all  humbleness  of  soul  and  spirit  showeth  unto 
your  sacred  Majesty  your  poor  distressed  subject  and 

4.  Add.  MSS.  19,  402,  fol.  62. 


222  PRAXCIS  BACON. 


faithful  servant,  sometimes  long  close  prisoner  in  the 
Tower  of  London  ;  that  whereas  it  graciously  pleased 
>14'  your  said  Majesty,  on  humble  submission  and  petition  to 
consider  and  commiserate  the  lamentable  condition  of 
the  poor  petitioner,  censured  in  the  Star  Chamber  for 
a  letter  written  to  the  Mayor  of  Marlborough  in  Octo- 
ber 1614,  and  therewith  showed  your  princely  and 
Royal  heart  so  moved  to  mercy,  that  as  the  then  Lord 
Chancellor  said  you  had  out  of  admirable  and  more 
than  kingly  benignity  and  bounty  so  remitted  the  same 
that  I  had  not  any  more  to  starve,  although  my  fine, 
together  with  my  submission,  remained  on  record.  .  .  . 
.  .  But  my  great  and  brain-sick  offence  against  your 
Most  Excellent  Majesty,  my  right  dear  Sovereign  (for 
which  phrase  at  your  Highness's  feet  my  broken  heart 
again  and  again  most  humbly  and  instantly  asketh 
your  most  gracious  pardon),  forbidding  me  your  awful 

presence on  my  bended  knees,  in  all  humility 

of  heart  and  spirit,  [I]  beseech  your  great,  imperial,  and 
sacred  Majesty,  first  gracious  remission  and  pardon,  both 
of  the  fault  and  pain,  as  also,  most  gracious  King  and 
my  dearest  liege  lord,  that  you  will  further  be  graciously 
pleased  to  show  your  most  admirable  goodness  and 
mercy  (if  it  may  stand  with  due  order  of  state  policy) 
in  commanding  a  removal  or  deleator  of  the  whole  rec- 
ord thereof;  that  so  great  an  ignominy  remain  not  on 
the  name  of  him  who,  having  been  now  received  your 
Majesty's  sworn  servant,  is  still  resolved  ever  to  re- 
ceive therein  that  fatal  arrow  in  his  breast  (with  loyal 


CASE   OF   OLIVER   ST.   JOHN.  223 

Hugo  de  St.  Clara)  than  once  admit  into  his  heart  the    IX.  4. 
least  disloyal  thought  against  your  sacred  person,  dig- 
nity, or  fame ;    the  very  least  of  us  whoso  shall  seek      ^ 
to  impeach,  let  God  from  Heaven  shoot  sharp  arrows 
into   his  heart,  that   all  the   King's   enemies   may  fall 
before  him.     So  prayeth,  from  his  inmost  heart, 
Your  Majesty's  humble,  faithful,  and 
obedient  vassal, 

OLIVER  ST.  JOHN. 

5.  Lord  Campbell,  who  brands  the  conduct  of  Bacon 
in  officially  aiding  to  silence  this  impudent  and  whining 
demagogue,  is  more  than  usually  infelicitous  in  the 
grounds  of  his  charge.  He  says  that  Bacon  in  his 
speech  against  Oliver  St.  John  strenuously  defends  the 
raising  of  money  by  benevolences.  Now,  he  does  no 
such  thing.  He  never  once  touches  the  law  of  these 
free  gifts.  He  proves,  and  proves  most  clearly,  that  the 
particular  benevolence  denounced  by  St.  John  to  the 
Mayor  of  Marlborough  as  a  violation  of  the  King's  oath, 
has  no  character  of  a  forced  loan.  The  question  tried, 
if  one  may  say  so  to  a  nobleman  who  has  been  a  Lord 
Chief  Justice  and  is  now  a  Lord  Chancellor,  was  not 
one  of  law,  but  one  of  fact,  —  not  whether  a  benevo- 
lence was,  in  the  reign  of  James  the  First,  legal,  but 
whether  St.  John  had  been  guilty  of  a  grievous  con- 
tempt in  publishing  his  letter  to  the  Mayor.  The  trial 
of  John  Bates  for  refusing  to  pay  the  taxes  levied  by 

5.  State  Trials,  ii.  899. 


224  FRANCIS  BACON. 


IX.  5.    the  Book  of  Rates  was  a  trial  of  law  ;  the  trial  of  Oliver 
St.  John  for  calling  the  King  forsworn  was  a  trial  of 

Dec. 


fact.     St.  John  was  condemned,  not  for  refusing  to  sub- 


scribe his  money,  but  for  publishing  a  letter  in  contempt 
of  the  Crown. 

6.  Pass  to  the  case  of  Peacham,  —  a  case  which  Lord 
Campbell  has  taken  less  pains  to  understand  than  even 
that  of  St.  John.  "  Fine  and  imprisonment,"  he  writes, 
"  having  no  effect  in  quelling  the  rising  murmurs  of  the 
people,  it  was  resolved  to  make  a  more  dreadful  example, 
and  Peacham,  a  clergyman  of  Somersetshire,  between 
sixty  and  seventy  years  of  age,  was  selected  for  the  vic- 
tim. On  breaking  into  his  study,  a  sermon  was  there 
found,  which  he  had  never  preached,  nor  intended  to 
preach,  nor  shown  to  any  human  being,  but  which  con- 
tained some  passages  encouraging  the  people  to  resist 
tyranny.  He  was  immediately  arrested,  and  a  resolu- 
tion was  taken  to  prosecute  him  for  high  treason.  But 
Mr.  Attorney,  who  is  alone  responsible  for  this  atrocious 
conduct,  anticipated  considerable  difficulties  both  in  law 
and  in  fact  before  the  poor  old  parson  could  be  subjected 
to  a  cruel  and  almost  ignominious  death." 

In  every  line  of  this  passage  there  is  error ;  indeed, 
the  whole  passage  is  an  error.  No  murmurs  arose  in 
the  country  on  account  of  St.  John.  No  one  at  court 
ever  dreamt  of  making  Peacham  a  victim,  for  no  one 
out  of  Somersetshire  had  ever  heard  his  name.  His 

6.  Peachanx's  Examination,  Aug.  31,  1615,  S.  P.  0. 


CASE  OF  EDMOND  PEACHAM.  225 

study  was  not  broken  into  for  the  purpose  of  finding  IX.  6. 
treason  in  it.  It  was  not  a  sermon  that  had  been  found. 
It  is  ridiculous  to  say  that  the  papers  seized  in  his  desk 
were  not  intended  to  be  shown  to  any  human  being,  for 
they  had  been  written  for  publication  and  had  in  truth 
been  shown  to  several  persons.  Peacham  was  not  ar- 
rested immediately  on  the  seizure  of  his  papers  ;  he  was 
already  in  custody  for  offences  less  dubious  than  a  polit- 
ical crime.  Mr.  Attorney  was  not  alone  responsible  for 
his  prosecution.  He  was  not  at  all  responsible.  The 
prosecution  was  ordered  by  the  Privy  Council,  of  which 
he  was  not  a  member.  It  was  conducted  by  Winwood, 
the  Puritan  Secretary  of  State. 

7.  Not  much  has  been  left  to  us  by  the  writers  about 
Edmond  Peacham  ;  yet  evidence  remains  in  the  books 
at  Wells,  and  in  the  records  of  Her  Majesty's  State 
Paper  Office,  to  prove  that  he  was  one  of  the  most  des- 
picable wretches  who  ever  brought  shame  and  trouble 
on  the  Church.  It  is  there  seen  that  he  was  a  libeller. 
It  is  there  seen  that  he  was  a  liar.  It  is  there  seen  that 
he  was  a  marvel  of  turbulence  and  ingratitude  ;  not 
alone  a  seditious  subject,  but  a  scandalous  minister  and 
a  perfidious  friend.  It  is  in  evidence  that  he  outraged 


7.  Sentence  of  Deprivation  against  Peacham,  Dec.  19,  1614,  S.  P.  0.;  Pre- 
sentation Books  at  Wells.  I  am  indebted  for  many  particulars  respecting 
Peacham  to  the  friendly  inquiries  made  for  me  by  Lord  Auckland,  Bishop  of 
Bath  and  Wells.  A  brief  inspection  of  the  papers  preserved  in  the  old  gate- 
tower  at  Wells  convinces  me  of  their  very  great  value  for  ecclesiastical  and 
family  history. 

10*  o 


226  FRANCIS  BACON. 

JX.  7.    his  bishop  by  a  scandalous  personal  libel  ;   and  that  he 
did  his  worst  to  get  the  patron  to  whom  he  owed  his 


1614. 


8.  Hallam  tells  us  how  hard  it  is  for  him  to  see  any 
way  in  which  this  poor  parson,  in  a  wild  part  of  the 
west  country,  far  from  a  large  town,  could  have  fallen 
into  the  clutches  of  the  law.  The  reader  of  Hallam 
will  be  glad  to  find  that  Peacham  fell  into  grief,  not 
on  account  of  his  politics,  but  for  an  unbearable  ecclesi- 
astical offence. 

For  several  years  Peacham  had  been  rector  of  Hin- 
ton  St.  George,  a  parish  in  the  wildest  part  of  Somerset- 
shire, and  in  the  diocese  of  Bath  and  Wells.  James 
Montagu,  Dean  of  the  Chapel,  was  bishop.  The  lord 
of  the  manor  and  patron  of  the  living  of  Hinton  St. 
George  was  John  Paulett,  grandson  of  Bacon's  old 
friend  and  guardian,  Sir  Amias  Paulett,  and  founder 
of  the  noble  line  of  that  name  and  place.  Margery,  a 
sister  of  this  John,  married  Sir  John  Sydenham  of 
Combe,  one  of  his  political  friends.  Paulett  repre- 
sented the  county  in  Parliament,  in  which  he  distin- 
guished himself  by  a  firm,  yet  far  from  disloyal  opposi- 
tion to  the  court. 

The  papers  at  Wells  still  prove  that  Peacham  had 
been  very  troublesome  to  the  Church.  There  had  been 
irregularities  in  his  institution.  There  had  been  libels 

'8.  Wells  MSS.;  Collins's  Peerage,  art.  Pawlett;  Council  Reg.,  Dec.  9,  16, 
1614. 


CASE  OF  EDMOND  PEACHAM.  227 

and  accusations  in  the  Bishop's  Court.     At  length,  there    IX.  8. 
came  from  Hinton  St.  George  a  foul  and  malignant  libel 

1f*14 

against  the  bishop  himself;  when  Montagu  appealed  to  ^ 
his  primate,  and  Archbishop  Abbott  cited  the  offender 
to  appear  before  him  at  Lambeth  and  purge  his  fame. 
His  character  and  his  cause  appeared  so  bad  that,  on 
his  arrival  in  town,  Abbott  lodged  him  in  the  Gatehouse, 
among  the  herd  of  recusants,  monks,  and  priests. 

9.  Many  a  Puritan  preacher,  silenced  for  a  word  on  Dec.  19. 
copes  and  stoles,  on  the  closed  book  or  the  unlit  candle, 
must  have  envied  this  libeller  such  a  hearing  as  the 
Church  condescends  to  grant  him.  Ten  commissioners, 
one  of  them  an  archbishop,  four  of  them  bishops,  meet 
to  try  his  case.  If  Abbott  and  King  lean  to  Puritan 
views,  Andrews  and  Neile  incline  towards  Rome.  In 
such  a  tribunal  there  is  sure  to  be  sympathy  for  any 
excess  of  zeal.  Yet  these  four  men,  as  well  as  the  other 
six,  condemn  him.  Ecclesiastics  who  differ  from  each 
other  on  every  point  of  doctrine  and  discipline  agree  to 
find  Peacham  guilty  of  composing,  writing,  or  causing 
to  be  written,  a  defamatory  libel  against  his  ordinary, 
contrary  to  his  canonical  obedience  and  reverence  and 
to  the  virtue  of  his  oath,  and  of  writing,  or  causing  to 
be  written,  a  scandalous  libel  against  the  laws,  statutes, 
and  customs  of  the  Church  and  the  ecclesiastical  juris- 
diction, defaming  the  clerical  order  and  the  national 
rite.  By  a  solemn  act  they  cast  him  from  the  Church. 

9.  Sentence  of  Deprivation  against  Edmond  Peacham,  Dec.  19, 1614,  S.  P.  0. 


228  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IX.  10.  10.  Among  the  papers  seized  in  bis  house  at  Hinton 
St.  George,  and  brought  up  with  him  to  London,  is  a 
mass  of  political  writings  scrawled  on  loose  sheets,  sewn 
together  so  as  to  make  a  book.  Glancing  through  these 
sheets,  the  commissioners  find  them  stuffed  with  defam- 
atory attacks  on  the  Court,  the  Government,  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  and  the  King,  so  sharp  and  savage  that  they 
must  have  been  either  meant  for  the  signal  of  a  rising 
or  have  been  composed  by  a  man  drunk  or  mad.  The 
King  is  charged  with  falsehood,  his  ministers  with  fraud. 
Peacham  treats  the  King  with  no  more  reverence  than 
his  bishop.  He  has  felt  himself  moved  to  say  that 
James  might  be  smitten  of  a  sudden,  in  a  week,  like 
Ananias  and  Nabal ;  that  the  Prince  will  want  to  take 
back  the  Crown-lands  sold  by  his  father,  when  men  will 
rise  up  against  him,  saying,  —  This  is  the  heir,  let  us 
kill  him.  He  has  declared  the  King's  officers  so  vile 
that  they  should  be  set  upon  and  put  to  the  sword ;  the 
King  himself  a  creature  not  alone  unfit  to  reign,  but 
unworthy  to  bear  the  name  of  Christian  or  of  man, — 
a  thing  too  abject  to  crawl  on  earth  or  be  redeemed 
in  heaven. 

These  passages   are   not  only  meant  for  the   public 
eye,  but  are  ready  for  the  press. 

11.  Winwood,  who,  if  not  a  Puritan,  is  a  protector 


10.  The  true  State  of  the  Question  whether  Peacham's  Case  be  Treason, 
State  Trials,  ii.  878. 

11.  Council  Reg.,  Nov.  2,  Dec.  9,  1614,  Feb.  25,  26,  1615. 


CASE  OF  EDMOND  PEACBAM.  229 

of  the   Puritans,  by  whose  help  he  holds  his  place  at  IX.  11. 
court,  sees  no  cause  in  this  depraved  and  convicted  man's 

1  |^i  c 

religion  to  stay  his  hand.  If  Peacham  is  a  Puritan, 
the  lay  chief  of  the  body  does  not  seem  to  know  it. 
"Winwood  puts  him  under  question ;  when  the  vicious 
old  sinner  falls  into  deeper  and  more  odious  sin.  From 
either  demoniacal  spite  at  his  recent  loss,  or  from  utter 
callousness  of  heart,  he  accuses  John  Paulett,  the  pa- 
tron to  whom  he  owes  his  living  in  the  Church,  of  a 
treasonable  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  his  book. 
And  not  only  John  Paulett,  but  his  sister's  husband, 
Sir  John  Sydenham,  whom  he  charges,  not  alone  with 
criminal  silence,  but  with  a  positive  share  in  the  com- 
position. Nor  do  the  wretch's  lies  end  here.  Among 
the  most  intimate  friends  of  Paulett  is  Sir  Maurice 
Berkeley,  a  politician  and  a  reformer,  who  plays  a 
conspicuous  part  in  London  life,  and  who  divides  with 
him  the  representation  of  the  shire  ;  him  also  Peach- 
am  charges  as  a  confederate.  Winwood  gets  alarmed. 
A  sedition  of  which  Paulett,  Berkeley,  and  Sydenham 
are  the  accomplices  may  be  fraught  with  peril.  He 
sends  Peacham  to  the  Tower,  brings  Paulett  and  Berke- 
ley before  the  Privy  Council,  and  calls  up  Sydenham 
from  Combe. 

12.  All  three  gentlemen  scout  with  indignation  this 
abominable  lie.  Paulett  and  Berkeley  say  they  have 
never  heard  one  word  of  the  scandalous  and  seditious 

12.  Council  Reg.,  Jan.  18, 1616. 


230  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IX.  12.  book  ;  Sydenham  says  he  never  wrote  a  line  of  it.  And 
they  tell  the  truth.  If  they  speak  against  the  Crown  on 
Jan.  questions  of  prerogative  and  grievances,  they  say  what 
they  have  to  say  in  the  House  of  Commons.  If  they 
are  hostile  to  the  court,  these  men  are  neither  libellers 
nor  traitors.  . 

Where  lies  the  truth  ? 

Here  are  the  seditious  libels  against  the  Crown,  of 
which  Peacham  asserts  that  he  shares  the  authorship 
with  Sydenham  and  the  privity  with  Paulett  and  Berke- 
ley. How  is  "Winwood  to  probe  the  mystery  ?  The  law 
has  but  one  course.  Peacham  must  be  interrogated  as 
Fawkes  was  interrogated. 

JM.  is.  The  Crown  sends  down  a  commission  to  the  Tower, 
consisting  of  Winwood,  Secretary  of  State  ;  Cesar,  Mas- 
ter of  the  Rolls  ;  Bacon,  Attorney-General ;  Yelverton, 
Solicitor-General ;  Montagu,  Recorder  of  London  ;  Ser- 
geant Crew  ;  and  Helwys,  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower,  to 
put  him  to  the  question.  An  extract  from  the  Council 
Register  will  show  the  order  under  which  they  act :  — 

THE  COUNCIL  TO  WINWOOD,  MASTER  OP  THE  ROLLS, 
LIEUT.  OF  TOWER,  AND  OTHERS. 

"  After  our  hearty  commendations.  Whereas  Edmond 
Peacham,  now  prisoner  in  the  Tower,  stands  charged 
with  the  writing  of  a  book  or  pamphlet  containing  mat- 
ters treasonable  (as  is  conceived),  and  being  examined 
thereupon  refuseth  to  declare  the  truth  in  those  points 


GENERAL  USE  OF  TORTURE.  231 

» 

whereof  he  hath  been  interrogated.  For  so  much  as  the  IX.  12. 
same  doth  concern  his  Majesty's  sacred  person  and  gov- 
ernment, and  doth  highly  concern  his  service-,  to  have  Jan  18 
many  things  yet  discovered  touching  the  said  book  and 
the  author  thereof,  wherein  Peacham  dealeth  not  so 
clearly  as  becometh  an  honest  and  loyal  subject.  These 
shall  be  therefore  in  his  Majesty's  name  to  will  and  re- 
quire you  and  every  of  you  to  repair  with  what  conven- 
ient diligence  you  may  unto  the  Tower,  and  there  to  call 
before  you  the  said  Peacham,  and  to  examine  him  strictly 
upon  such  interrogatories  concerning  the  said  book  as 
you  shall  think  fit  and  necessary  for  the  manifestation  of 
truth  ;  and  if  you  find  him  obstinate  and  perverse,  and 
not  otherwise  willing  or  ready  to  tell  the  truth,  then  to 
put  him  to  the  ipanacles  as  in  your  discretion  you  shall 
see  occasion ;  for  which  this  shall  be  to  you  and  every 
of  you  sufficient  warrant." 

13.  That  these  instructions  were  obeyed  by  the  com- 
missioners there  is  no  room  to  doubt.  A  man  of  gentle 
heart  may  regret  that  commands  so  savage  and  so  fu- 
tile should  proceed  from  the  English  Crown  ;  but  while 
grieving  that  our  ancestors  were  either  less  wise  or  less 
compassionate  than  ourselves,  no  candid  mind  will  con- 
sent to  assess  the  fault  of  an  entire  generation  on  the 
character  of  a  single  man.  A  belief  that  truth  must  be 
sought  by  help  of  the  cord,  the  maiden,  and  the  wheel, 
was  in  the  opening  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  uni- 

13.  Dom.  Papers  James  the  First,  Ixxx.  6,  26,  38. 


232  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IX.  13.  versal.  It  had  come  down  with  the  codes  and  usages  of 
antiquity,  sustained  by  the  practice  of  every  people  on 
the  civilized  globe  ;  most  of  all  by  the  practice  of  those 
wealthy  and  illustrious  communities  which  had  kept  most 
pure  the  traditions  of  Imperial  Roman  law.  Men  who 
agreed  in  nothing  else,  agreed  in  seeking  truth  through 
pain.  Nations  which  fought  each  other  to  the  knife  over 
definitions  of  grace,  election,  and  transubstantiation,  had 
a  common  faith  in  the  possibility  of  discovering  truth  by 
the  rack,  the  pincers,  and  the  screw.  There  were  torture- 
chambers  at  Osnaburgh  and  Ratisbon,  no  less  hideous 
Feb.  than  those  of  Valladolid  and  Rome.  The  same  hot  bars, 
the  same  boots,  the  same  racks,  were  found  in  the  Piombi 
and  the  Bastile,  in  the  Bargello  and  the  Tower.  Nor 
was  the  Church  one  whit  more  gentle  or  enlightened  than 
the  civil  power.  Cardinals  searched  out  heresy  in  the 
flames  of  the  Quemadero,  as  the  Council  of  Ten  tracked 
treason  in  the  waves  of  the  Lagune.  Bacon  was  not 
more  responsible  for  the  universal  practice  than  for  the 
particular  act.  To  have  set  himself  against  the  spirit  of 
his  tune  he  must  have  mounted  St.  Simeon  Stylites's  col- 
umn, or  shrunk  into  St.  Anthony's  cave.  If  he  chose  to 
live  among  men,  he  must  discharge  the  duties  of  a  man. 
There  lies  a  deep  gulf  between  acts  of  duty  and  acts  of 
the  will.  One  who  from  morbid  mind,  or  from  love  of 
pain,  must  follow  the  death-cart  to  Tyburn,  is  not  per- 
forming a  noble  or  necessary  deed  ;  yet  the  chaplain  who 
has  to  rceite  the  prayer,  the  sheriff  who  has  to  signal  the 
drop,  go  free  from  blame.  So  in  truth  with  Bacon.  If 


GENERAL  USE  OF  TORTURE.  233 

he  were   present  at  the  question  of  Peacham,  he  was  IX.  13. 
there  as  one  of  a  commission  acting  under  special  com- 
mands from  the  Privy  Council.     It  is  silly  to  say  he  was      Feb 
responsible  for  what  was  done.     He  was  not  chief  of  the 
commissioners.     He  was  not  even  a  member  of  the  high 
body  in  whose  name  they  spoke.     His  official  superiors, 
Winwood    and   Cesar,   were   on   the   spot.     Does    Lord 
Campbell  think   the  Attorney-General   should  have   de- 
clined to  act  with  them,  thrown  up  his  commission,  and 
refused  to  obey  the  Crown  ? 

14.  Bear  in  mind  the  age  in.  which  he  lived.  The 
cry  of  pain,  the  gasp  of  death,  were  no  such  shocks  to 
the  gentle  heart  as  they  would  be  in  a  softer  time.  Men 
had  been  hardened  in  the  Smithfield  fires.  Minds  were 
infected  by  the  atrocities  of  Papist  plots.  The  ballads 
sung  in  the  streets  were  steeped  in  blood,  and  the  plays 
which  best  drew  audiences  to  the  Globe  theatre  were 
those  in  which  fewest  of  the  characters  were  left  alive. 
Hamlet,  Pericles,  Titus  Andronicus,  were  the  Shake- 
sperian  favorites.  No  man  is  known  to  have  felt  any 
sickness  of  the  heart  in  presence  of  judicial  torture. 
Egerton  often  saw  men  on  the  rack.  Winwood  stood 
by  while  Peacham,  under  torture,  told  his  tale.  James 
was  present  when  Fawkes  was  stretched.  A  feeling,  it 
is  true,  was  beginning  to  quicken  in  society  against  this 
use  of  the  rack.  Both  Coke  and  Bacon  disapproved  its 
use  ;  but  this  merciful  sentiment  of  a  few  jurists  and 
philosophers  was  unshared  by  the  multitude  of  men  who 


234  FRANCIS   BACON. 


IX.  14.  made  the  laws.     Until  the  Crown  should  see  fit  to  aban- 
don this  old  plan  of  seeking  truth  through  crushed  feet 

Feb. 


1  /»1  ff 

and  dislocated  joints,  the  officers  of  the  Crown  had  no 


choice  but  to  read  their  commission  and  execute  their 
trust. 

15.  This  truth  is  so  clear  that  it  ought  to  need  no 
illustration.  Take  a  fact  from  our  own  time.  More 
than  one  living  judge  is  supposed  to  be  adverse  to  trial 
by  jury.  Yet  the  judges  sit  in  courts  where  property 
and  life  are  daily  exposed  to  the  mercy  of  a  dozen  illog- 
ical and  prejudiced  men.  Are  they  responsible  for  the 
wrong  done?  Again,  it  is  conceivable  that  a  judge  might 
feel  uneasy  on  the  score  of  capital  punishments.  It  is 
inconceivable  that  any  judge  on  the  Bench  would  refuse 
to  hang  a  Palmer  or  a  Rush  so  long  as  the  law  continues 
to  declare  wilful  murder  worthy  of  death.  Bacon  told 
the  King  that  he  misliked  the  use  of  torture  in  judicial 
inquiries.  He  told  him  so  in  this  very  case  of  Peacham. 
Further  than  that  expression  he  could  not  go. 

Bacon's  case  in  1860  may  possibly  become  Lord  Camp- 
bell's case  in  1960.  Let  the  public  heart  go  on  soften- 
ing for  a  hundred  years,  fast  -as  it  has  softened  from  the 
early  days  of  John  Howard,  and  the  whole  civilized 
world  may  come  by  1960  to  regard  the  strangling  of  a 
human  being,  on  any  pretext  whatever,  as  a  monstrous 
crime.  Would  such  a  change  of  public  feeling  lay  Lord 
Campbell  open  to  the  charge  of  judicial  murder?  Would 
it  be  just  in  a  writer  of  that  compassionate  age  to  relate 


POSSIBLE   CASE   OF   LORD    CAMPBELL.  235 

with  "  horror  "  that  Lord  Campbell  prostituted  emi-  IX.  15. 
nent  parts  and  sullied  an  honorable  name  by  sitting  for 
many  years  in  a  court  of  justice  where  life  was  taken  Feb 
in  the  name  of  law,  with  his  own  lips  delivering  man 
after  man,  and  even  woman  after  woman,  to  be  stran- 
gled in  presence  of  a  brutal  crowd,  by  a  wretch  who  re- 
ceived his  blood-money  for  every  loathsome  job  ?  "Would 
it  be  fair  to  say  that  Lord  Campbell  in  his  thirst  for 
blood  took  the  life  of  Sarah  Chesham,  a  poor  woman 
sentenced  to  death  on  circumstantial  proof,  who  pro- 
tested her  innocence  with  the  rope  round  her  throat? 
"Would  it  be  fair  to  say  that  with  savage  glee  he  ordered 
Emma  Mussett  to  be  strangled  on  pretence  of  child- 
murder,  even  though  obliged  to  confess  that  the  evi- 
dence was  full  of  doubt?  Would  it  be  honest  in  the 
writer  of  a  future  century  to  say  that  in  1860  Lord 
Campbell  stood  alone  on  the  bench  in  his  resolute  prac- 
tice of  hanging  women,  —  while,  under  such  humane 
judges  as  Crompton  and  Cresswell,  the  lives  of  Celes- 
tina  Sommers  and  Elizabeth  Harris,  criminals  of  whose 
guilt  no  man  could  doubt,  were  spared  ?  We  think  the 
writer  who  should  say  this,  or  anything  like  this,  in 
1960,  would  be  as  unfair  to  Lord  Campbell  as  Lord 
Campbell  has  been  to  Francis  Bacon. 

16.   How    Peacham    lies    and    swears,   now  accusing     Aug. 


16.  State  Trials,  ii.  870;  Diary  of  Walter  Yonge,  27;  Chamberlain  to 
Carleton,  Feb.  9,  Mar.  2,  Aug.  24,  1615,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Reg.,  July  12, 
1615. 


236  FRANCIS   BACON. 

I 

IX.  16.  others,  and  now  himself,  anon  retracting  all  that  he  has 
said,  denying  even  his  handwriting  and  his  signature, 
Aug  one  day  standing  to  the  charge  against  Sydenham,  next 
day  running  from  it  altogether;  how  he  is  sent  down 
into  Somersetshire,  the  scene  of  his  ignoble  ministry,  to 
be  tried  by  a  jury  of  men  who  will  interpret  his  public 
conduct  by  what  they  know  of  his  private  life  ;  how  he 
is  found  guilty  by  the  twelve  jurors  and  condemned  by 
Sir  Lawrence  Tanfield  and  Sir  Henry  Montagu,  two  of 
the  most  able  and  humane  judges  on  the  bench ;  how 
lus  sentence  is  commuted  by  the  Crown  into  imprison- 
ment during  the  King's  pleasure ;  and  how  he  ulti- 
mately dies  in  Taunton  jail,  unpitied  by  a  single  friend, 
I  need  not  pause  to  tell. 

Aug.  31.  17.  After  sentence  of  death  has  been  recorded  against 
him,  he  offers  to  tell  the  truth,  if  the  King  will  only 
spare  his  life.  The  written  confession,  twice  signed  by 
his  hand,  which  remains  in  the  State  Paper  Office,  tells  in 
his  own  words  how  he  came  to  utter  that  lie  about  Sir 
John  Sydenham.  A  question  being  put  to  him  :  — 

"  He  answereth  that  all  the  said  words  wherewith  he 
charged  Sir  John  Sydenham  were  first  written  by  himself, 
this  examinate,  only ;  and,  afterwards  hearing  these  same 
words  delivered  unto  him  by  Sir  John  Sydenham,  they 
were,  to  this  examinate,  a  confirmation  of  that  which  he 
had  formerly  written.  And,  being  further  asked  how  he 

17.  Peacham's  Examination,  Aug.  31,  1615,  S.  P.  0. 


PEACHAM'S   ANSWERS.  237 

could  so  strongly  father  those  words  upon  Sir  John  Sy-  IX.  17. 
denham,  seeing  he  now   confesseth  himself  to   be   the 

1  fil  K 

author,  and  Sir  John  Sydenham  but  only  to  confirm  him  Au  3j 
in  them,  he  answereth  that,  when  he  made  this  answer, 
he  understood  not  that  distinction  betwixt  the  author  and 
confirmer,  but  that  they  were  both  taken  for  one  to  his 
understanding.  And,  being  asked  as  before,  what  was 
his  reason  and  end  in  charging  Sir  John  Sydenham,  he 
answereth  he  did  it  to  satisfy  his  Majesty  and  the  Lords 
with  the  truth." 

Being  asked  his  motives  and  intentions  in  writing  the 
pamphlet :  — 

"  He  answereth  that,  first,  it  was  compiled  without  any 
knowledge  of  evil  (?)  on  his  part,  either  against  the  King 
or  estate  ;  and,  secondly,  after  good  and  advised  delibera- 
tion, he  would  have  taken  out  all  the  venom  and  poison 
thereof,  before  ever  he  would  have  published  the  same. 
And,  being  asked  in  what  manner  he  would  have  pub- 
lished it,  —  either  by  preaching  it,  or  delivering  copies  of 
it,  or  by  printing  it,  —  he  protesteth  that  his  intent  was 
never  either  to  publish,  or  to  give  copy,  or  to  print,  but 
only  in  private,  for  his  own  study,  to  reduce  it  into  heads, 
that  he  might  make  use  thereof  for  such  particulars  as  he 
out  of  the  text  observed,  whensoever  he  should  have  occa- 
sion to  speak  of  any  such  matter,  when  all  the  evil  was 
taken  out." 

He  pronounces  this  a  true  confession ;  saying  he  should 


238  FRANCIS  BACON. 

IX.  17.  abhor  telling  a  lie  to  his  sovereign,  and  should  think 
himself  guilty  of  his  own  blood  if  he  kept  back  anything 

1  £1  tC 

after  having  been  promised  his  life   for  revealing   the 
truth. 

18.  One  more  charge.  Bacon,  it  has  been  said,  not 
only  stands  by  while  the  prisoner  undergoes  examination, 
but,  on  the  King's  command,  consults  the  judges  as  to 
whether  this  crime  of  seditious  writing  amounts  to  trea- 
son by  the  law.  In  the  wake  of  Macaulay,  Lord  Campbell 
says  that  a  private  consultation  with  the  judges  was  an 
act  most  scandalous  and  most  unusual.  The  scandal  of 
such  proceedings  may  be  matter  of  opinion ;  their  fre- 
quency is  beyond  denial.  The  Kings  of  England  always 
enjoyed,  and  constantly  exercised,  the  right  of  consulting 
their  judges  on  the  statutory  bearing  of  political  crimes. 
These  judges  had  always  been  the  King's  judges ;  holding 
their  commissions  at  his  pleasure  ;  bound  by  their  oaths  to 
advise  him  on  points  of  law.  Macaulay  says  there  is  no 
instance  of  the  Crown  privately  consulting  with  the 
bench :  "  Bacon  was  not  conforming  to  an  usage  then 
generally  admitted  to  be  proper.  He  was  not  even  the 
.  last  lingering  adherent  of  an  old  abuse.  It  would  have 
been  sufficiently  disgraceful  to  such  a  man  to  be  in  this 
last  situation.  Yet  this  last  situation  would  have  been 
honorable,  compared  with  that  in  which  he  stood.  He 
was  guilty  of  attempting  to  introduce  into  the  courts  of 
law  an  odious  abuse,  for  which  no  precedent  could  be 

18.  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Bacon;  Campbell's  Life  of  Bacon,  iii.  65. 


LEGATE  BURNT  BY  JAMES.  239 

found."     Why,   the    law-books    teem  with    precedents.  IX.  18. 
One  will  serve  for  a  score.     It  happens,  indeed,   that 

Ifil  ^ 

there  is  one  precedent  so  strange  in  its  circumstances,     ^  t ' 
and  so  often  the  subject  of  legal  and  historical  comment, 
that  it  is  amazing  how  it  could  have  slipped  the  recollec- 
tion of  any  lawyer,  and  most  of  all  a  lawyer  writing  of 
the  times  of  James  the  First. 

19.  Peacham's  arrest  occurred  in  1614.  In  1612,  Bar- 
tholomew Legate,  a  poor  Arian  preacher,  of  simple  nature 
and  extreme  dogmatic  views,  was  tried  by  a  consistory 
of  divines,  then  sitting  at  St.  Paul's,  condemned  for  ten 
separate  heresies,  and  sentenced  to  be  burnt  alive.  King, 
his  ordinary,  turned  him  over  to  the  secular  arm.  But, 
as  an  Act  of  the  first  year  of  Elizabeth  had  repealed  the 
Statute  of  Heresy,  leaving  errors  of  faith  to  the  more 
merciful  ruling  of  the  common  law,  a  question  arose  as 
to  whether  the  Crown  had  power  to  execute  this  abom- 
inable sentence  of  the  divines.  James  thought  he  had 
full  powers.  The  judges  were  consulted  one  by  one. 
Abbott  instructed  Egerton  how  to  act ;  and  the  Lord 
Chancellor  conferred  in  private  with  his  legal  brethren, 
Williams,  Croke,  and  Altham  being  sounded  by  him  or 
by  his  orders.  As  they  all  agreed  that  James,  despite 
the  repeal  of  the  Statute  of  Heresy,  had  power  to  burn, 
the  King,  on  their  authority,  issued  his  warrant  under 
the  sign  manual  to  Egerton,  Egerton  sent  his  writ  to 

19.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Feb.  26,  Mar.  25,  1612,  S.  P.  0.;  Sign  Manuals, 
i.  No.  15 ;  Egerton  Papers,  447. 


240  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IX.  19.  the  sheriff,  and  thus,  without  condemnation  in  any  civil 
court,  Bartholomew  Legate  perished  in  the  Smithfield 


1615. 

names. 

Sept. 


This  is  the  precedent  Macaulay  seeks. 

20.  It  is  right  to  add  that  the  Privy  Council  abandoned 
all  proceedings  against  Paulett  and  Berkeley  at  an  early 
date,  and  that  Sydenham  was  restored  to  his  freedom 
purged  in  fame.  It  is  also  right  to  add  that  the  notion 
of  treating  Edmond  Peacham  as  though  he  were  in 
some  sort  a  Puritan  martyr  is  an  aberration  of  the  mod- 
ern biographical  mind.  The  Puritan  writers  say  nothing 
for  him ;  he  has  no  place  in  the  pages  of  Toulmin  or  of 
Neale.  He  was  degraded  by  a  Puritan  Archbishop,  prose- 
cuted and  condemned  by  a  Puritan  Secretary  of  State. 

20.  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  26;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Mar.  2, 1615,  S.  P.  0. 


GARB,  EABL  OF  SOMERSET.  241 


CHAPTER     X. 

RACE  WITH   COKE. 

1.  LORD  CAMPBELL  accuses  Bacon  of  having  fawned  on    X.  1. 
Somerset  in  his  greatness,  of  having  abandoned  him  in  his 

HI  *\ 

fall.  Part  of  this  accusation  was  made  by  Coke  ;  not  all  ' 
of  it ;  and  in  a  whisper,  not  hi  boldly-spoken  words.  A 
glance  at  the  facts,  as  they  stand  in  the  registers  of  the 
Privy  Council  and  the  archives  of  the  State  Paper  Office, 
will  suffice,  it  is  thought,  to  convince  an  impartial  reader 
that  Bacon's  course  through  these  proceedings  against 
the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Somerset  was  in  the  highest 
degree  noble  and  humane.  Such  a  reader  will  see  that 
he  was  neither  obsequious  to  Somerset  in  his  pride,  nor 
insolent  to  him  in  his  disgrace. 

2.  Somerset  had   not  been  friendly  to  Bacon's   suit. 
Not  that  the  young  Scottish  favorite  was  wholly  wanting 
in  sympathy  for  merit.     His  own  abilities  were  not  vast, 


1.  Campbell,  iii.  66;  Yelverton  to  Bacon,  Sept.  3,  1617,  Lambeth  MSS.  986. 

2.  Bacon  to  Carr,  Nov.  14,  1612,  S.  P.  0.    Mr.  Amos,  in  his  Great  Oyer 
of  Poisoning,  1846,  and  Dr.  Rimbault,  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Miscellaneous 
Works  of  Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  1856,  have  thrown  light  on  the  story  of  Somer- 
set; but  the  true  history  can  be  traced  in  its  minute  details  nowhere  save  in  the 
State  Papers  of  1612-15.     These  papers  are  far  too  numerous  to  cite. 

11  P 


242  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  2.  nor  his  tastes,  except  in  dress,  refined  ;  yet  he  was  very 
far  from  being  the  abject  creature  that  Lord  Campbell 

^  t '  says.  Abject  of  nature  he  was  not ;  guilty  of  murder  he 
was  not.  More  than  one  popular  poet  found  in  him  a 
patron  and  a  friend.  He  was  kind  to  Jonson,  more  than 
kind  to  Donne.  For  years  he  maintained  the  closest  inti- 
macy with  Overbury  ;  a  connection  not  to  have  been  kept 
with  that  haughty  and  sensitive  man  of  genius  had  Som- 
erset been  the  fool  in  feathers  and  rosettes  he  is  com- 
monly made.  But  Bacon's  policy  was  not  his  policy. 
Blown  about  with  every  wind,  the  favorite  swayed  from 
west  to  east,  now  moored  among  the  extreme  Puritans, 
now  among  the  most  bigoted  of  the  Papists.  When  he 
at  length  chose  a  side,  it  was  with  the  party  against  which 
Bacon  had  spent  the  best  of  his  days  and  the  most  bril- 
liant of  his  powers ;  for  he  suffered  his  name  to  be  used, 
and  his  influence  over  James  to  be  abused,  by  that  iniqui- 
tous Spanish  faction  of  which  Sir  "William  Monson  was 
the  pensioned  agent,  Lord  Northampton  the  pensioned 
chief. 

A  nature  proof  against  gold  was  not  proof  against  love. 
A  pair  of  bright  eyes,  which,  in  the  language  of  Donne, 

"  Sowed  the  court  with  stars," 

turned  upon  him ;  the  eyes  of  Lady  Essex,  Lord  North- 
ampton's niece.  Her  uncle  set  her  on;  that  venal  old 
pander  putting  the  young  wife  of  Essex  in  Somerset's  way, 
tempting  her  virtue  to  break  its  vows,  and  lending  his 
house  to  the  profligate  pair  for  their  stolen  kisses.  Soft 
of  heart,  inclined  by  youth  and  rivalry  to  vice,  Somerset 


MURDER   OF   OVERBURY.  243 

fell  into  the  snares  laid  for  him  by  wily  graybeard  and    X.  2. 

the  shameless  girl. 

1615. 
Sept. 

3.  Somerset  won  to  their  side,  the  Romanist  party 
ruled  the  state.  All  that  a  doting  prince  has  in  his  gift 
—  rank,  places,  pensions,  grants,  monopolies,  embassies, 
mitres  —  for  a  time  were  theirs.  They  gave  to  whom 
they  would,  and  they  sold  to  whom  they  could.  They 
refused  to  give  Bacon  the  Court  of  Wards.  They  sold  it 
to  Cope.  But  their  reign  was  short ;  for  the  actors  in 
this  drama  of  unholy  love  fell  from  their  odious  profligacy 
into  a  diabolical  crime.  Overbury,  whom  they  feared, 
not  only  for  his  influence  over  Carr,  but  for  the  English 
vigor  of  his  Protestantism,  was  done  by  them  to  death. 
At  first  they  kept  their  secret ;  and  in  truth  the  accusation 
against  them  was  of  a  kind  which  defies  belief.  That 
three  great  earls,  with  three  or  four  distinguished  knights 
holding  high  positions  in  the  country,  should  league  them- 
selves with  wizards,  harlots,  quacks,  'prentice-boys,  and 
grooms,  to  murder  a  private  gentleman  for  a  few  verses  of 
reproof  addressed  to  a  friend  in  love,  required  the  bold 
and  morbid  imagination  of  a  "Webster  even  to  conceive. 
Poisoning,  too,  was  rare :  "  It  is  neither  of  our  country 
nor  of  our  church,"  said  Bacon ;  "  you  may  find  it  in 
Rome  or  Italy ;  there  is  a  region  or  perhaps  a  religion  for 
it."  People  forgot  that  Northampton  was  of  that  religion, 

8.  Wake  to  Carleton,  Venice  Correspondence,  Nov.  18,  1612;  Chamberlain 
to  Carleton,  Nov.  26, 1612,  S.  P.  0.;  Bacon's  Speech  in  Star  Chamber,  Nov.  10, 
1615,  S.  P.  0. 


244  FRANCIS   BACON. 

X.  3.    that  his  associates  were  Italians  and  Jesuits,  and  that  his 
early  days  had  been  spent  in  Florence  and  Rome. 

1615. 

Sept. 

4.  Yet  suspicion   spread.     The  poet's  kinsmen  mur- 
mured.    Some  who  understood  his  character,  many  who 
admired  his  writings,  spoke  of  his  sudden  death,  his  sin- 
gular interment.     Then,  the  publication  of  "  The  Wife,"  a 
poem  which  charmed  all  hearts  by  its  wisdom  and  poetic 
beauty,  kindled  a  burning  wish  to  inquire  into  the  poet's 
fate.    Five  editions  of  The  Wife  were  sold  in  a  year; 
five  thousand  voices  began  to  call  his  enemies  to  account. 
The  cry  could  not  be  stifled.     Men  forgot  their  affairs  to 
ask  about  the  poisoners  of  Overbury  ;  the  ordinary  courts 
of  law,  even  the  playhouses,  were  abandoned  for  the  de- 
velopment of  a  more  striking  drama.     Term,  says  Bacon, 
was  turned  into  a  justicium  or  vacancy  by  it.     Yet,  who 
was  to  set  the  law  in  motion  ?     Those  to  be  touched  by 
the  officers  of  justice,  perhaps  by  the  hangman,  stood 
among  the  highest  in  the  land.     Who  would  lay  finger 
on  the  Howards  and  the  Carrs? 

5.  Men  sprang  up  for  this  desperate  duty.      By  his 
union  with  the  wife  of  a  living  man,  Somerset  grieved  the 
church  of  which  Abbott  was  the  hierarchical  head,  not 


4.  A  Wife,  now  a  Widowe,  1614;  A  Wife,  now  the  Widow  of  Sir  Thomas 
Overburye,  1614;  Do.,  in  three  subsequent  impressions,  1614;  Bacon's  Speech 
in  Star  Chamber,  Nov.  10,  1615. 

6.  Archbishop  Abbott's  Narrative,  in  Rnshworth,  i.  460;  Bacon's  Speech 
in  Star  Chamber,  Nov.  10,  1615;  Weston's  Examination,  Sept.  28,  29,  Oct.  2,  3, 
6,  6, 1615,  S.  P.  0. ;  Sir  Thomas  Monson's  Examination,  Oct.  5,  1615,  S.  P.  0. 


PROCEEDINGS   AGAINST   POISONERS.  245 

less  than  the  Puritan  congregations  of  which  Win  wood  X.  5. 
was  considered  the  parliamentary  chief.  The  Archbishop, 
having  strained  his  strength  and  jeopardized  his  life  to  ^ 
prevent  the  divorce,  was  ready  to  fight,  with  such  allies 
as  God  might  send  him,  against  the  malign  ambition  and 
insatiable  greed  of  Lady  Somerset's  kin.  Therefore,  when 
the  cry  for  justice  on  the  murderers  of  Overbury  rose  to 
heaven,  he  offered  his  high  rank  and  holy  character  as  a 
shield  to  such  witnesses  as,  without  this  august  protection, 
would  scarcely  have  dared  to  wag  their  tongues.  Win- 
wood,  Egerton,  Zouch,  Southampton;  Essex,  Pembroke, 
and  Montgomery,  all  the  more  patriotic  peers,  the  friends 
of  poets,  the  founders  of  Free  States,  joined  hands  with 
the  brave  Archbishop  in  this  crusade  against  vice  and 
crime.  Bacon,  who  had  known  the  poet  and  admired 
the  qualities  of  his  genius,  went  with  the  English  church- 
man and  the  English  peers. 

The  bright  eyes  and  soft  cheek  of  George  Villiers,  a 
prettier  man  than  even  Carr,  reconciled  the  King's  heart 
to  a  general  arrest  and  rigorous  examination  of  his  old 
favorite's  bosom  friends.  Coke  managed  the  case  against 
them. 

Soon  the  confessions  of  Franklin,  Weston,  and  Anne 
Turner  implicated  high  persons.  Northampton  was  be- 
yond the  reach  of  law ;  but  his  tools  or  dupes,  Sir 
Gervase  Helwys,  Sir  Thomas  and  Sir  William  Monson, 
were  still  alive.  Coke  lodged  them  in  the  Tower ;  sent 
Helwys  to  the  gallows  ;  got  a  true  bill  found  against  Sir 
Thomas  Monson  at  Guildhall,  and  would  have  put  him 


246  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  5.    to  death,  with  or  without  evidence  of  his  guilt,  but  for 
the  necessity  of  keeping  him,  an  unconvicted  man,  as 
^  t '    evidence  against  Carr. 

NOT.  6.  In  these  trials  of  the  assassins,  it  is  remarkable  that 
Bacon,  though  holding  office  as  Attorney-General,  has  no 
share.  Either  his  gentle  nature  shrinks  from  the  horrors 
of  a  criminal  prosecution,  or  Coke  excludes  him  from 
proceedings  in  which  he  expects  to  find  abundant  profit 
and  fame.  Either  supposition  may  be  true.  It  is  ob- 
vious from  the  record  of  the  criminal  courts  that  Bacon 
must  often  have  left  to  others,  when  he  might  have 
taken  the  part  himself,  the  dramatic  and  exciting  task 
of  chasing  criminals  to  death.  None  of  Coke's  thirst 
for  blood  parched  up  his  soul :  the  trials  of  Essex  and 
Sanquhair  are  almost  the  sole  cases  in  which  Bacon 
took  part  that  ended  in  the  loss  of  life.  Coke,  bent  on 
hanging  and  bowelling  all  these  miserable  wretches,  may 
have  feared  his  tender  heart  and  his  respect  for  the  forms 
of  law.  Certain  it  is  that  Sir  Lawrence  Hyde  acts  as 
Crown  prosecutor,  and  that  one  at  least  of  the  prisoners, 
that  one  a  woman,  is  hurried  to  the  gallows  in  a  way 
which  no  lawyer  can  now  defend. 

1616.        7.  In  the  more  important  trials  of  the  Earl  and  Count- 
May  24-    ess  Of  Somerset,  not  before  Coke,  but  before  the  highest 

6.  State  Trials,  ii.  911-948;  Welden,  101. 

7.  Sherburne's  Report  of  Lady  Somerset's  Trial,  May  24,  1616,  S.  P.  0. ; 
Winwood  to  Wotton,  May  2,  1616,  Venice  Correspondence,  S.  P.  0.;  Bacon's 
Charge,  in  Montagu,  vi.  235. 


CASE   OF  THE  SOMERSETS.  247 

court  in  the  realm,  the  House  of  Peers,  Bacon  assumes     X.  7. 
his  place.     Lady  Somerset  pleads  guilty,  throwing  her- 
self on  the  mercy  of  God  and  the  King,  —  drawn  to  that    ^  <24 
course  by  an  understanding,  or  a  promise,  that  her  ap- 
peal to  the  Crown  shall  be  mercifully  heard.     Bacon  is 
prepared  for  either  course  :  the  notes  of  a  speech  intend- 
ed to  have  been  made  against  her  are  preserved  among 
his  works.     They  are   singularly  merciful   and  gentle. 
Somerset's  case  comes  last.     Lord  Campbell  assumes  his 
guilt ;  but  such  a  study  of  the  confessions  as  he  gave  to 
the  evidence  against  Sarah  Chesham  or  William  Palmer 
would  convince  him  that,  though  guilty  of  some  deprav- 
ity of  heart  and  understanding,  as  well  as  of  criminal 
weakness  towards  his  wife  and  her  associates,  it  is  very 
far  indeed  from  sure  that  he  was  guilty  of  any  share  in 
Overbury's   death.     No   proof  was   given,  nor  has  any 
proof  been  yet  found,  that   Somerset  knew  of  Weston 
being  put  into  the  cell  to  kill  Overbury,  or  of  the  Count- 
ess sending  the  relays  of  poisoned  tarts  and  soups.     It  is 
certain  that  he  was  deceived  throughout  by  Lord  North- 
ampton.    Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  his  indolent  selfishness  led  him  to  the  very  verge  of 
connivance  in  the  crime.     It  was  a  case  of  doubt,  and 
will  remain  so  to  the  end  of  time.    Bacon  claimed  strict  jus- 
tice from  the  Peers,  while  he  left  the  gates  of  mercy  open 
to  the  Crown.     The  Peers  condemn  Somerset,  but  with  a 
tacit  understanding  that  his  life  shall  not  be  taken  away. 

8.  When  Somerset  has  been  sent  to  the  Tower,  — when 


248  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  8.  the  Howards  are  cast  down  from  their  bad  eminence,  and 
the  flagitious  Spanish  clique  seems  broken  by  their  fall,  — 

^  Bacon's  voice  is  raised  for  clemency.  When  he  has  done 
his  duty  as  Attorney-General,  he  remembers  his  privi- 
leges as  a  Christian  and  a  man.  Life  enough  has  been 
taken.  Helwys,  Weston,  Franklin,  Anne  Turner,  all  the 
more  active  agents  in  the  deed,  are  gone.  The  Countess 
has  a  baby  at  her  breast,  —  that  little  girl  who,  born  in 
shame,  will  live  to  become  the  mother  of  William  Lord 
Russell.  She  has  confessed  her  guilt,  she  has  been  aw- 
fully punished,  and  the  remnant  of  her  years  is  doomed 
to  obscurity  and  shame.  The  Earl  maintains  his  inno- 
cence ;  the  world  has  not  been  satisfied  of  his  guilt. 
Humanity  and  Law  alike  concede  to  him  the  protection 
of  every  doubt.  Bacon's  counsel  to  the  Crown  must  be 
allowed  to  be  pure.  He  owes  nothing  to  Somerset  in  the 
past,  —  he  can  have  nothing  to  hope  from  him  in  the 
time  to  come. 

9.  He  has  some  domestic  and  rather  humorous  trials 
of  his  own.  Sir  John  and  the  lady  in  Worcester  break 
his  rest.  Having  put  his  scorn  upon  Lord  Eure,  and 
worried  him  into  selling  his  place  to  Lord  Gerard ;  hav- 
ing got,  with  the  help  of  Gervase  Babington,  Bishop  of 
Worcester,  a  grant  from  the  Crown  to  restore  his  pool ; 
having  finished  his  house  in  the  middle  of  Westwood 


8.  Bacon  to  James,  April  28,  1616. 

9.  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  7.  1615;  Dom.  Papers  James  the  First,  Ixxxvii.  67, 
S.  P.  0.;  Wotton,  i.  186. 


LADY  PAKINGTON.  249 

Park,  and  given  a  banquet  to  Lord  and  Lady  Compton     X.  9. 
and  their  train  in  honor  of  the  event,  which  has  been  the 

1  /*-|  /^ 

talk  of  neighboring  shires,  the  warm  old  knight,  having  ^ 
no  one  left  to  fight  with,  has  begun  to  fuss  and  wrangle 
with  his  wife.  The  widow,  on  her  side,  is  now  perverse. 
Sir  John  has  to  turn  her  out  of  doors.  When  she  leaves 
the  park  and  rides  up  to  town,  her  clothes  and  trinkets, 
sent  on  before  her,  are  stolen  on  the  way.  In  the  full 
belief  that  Sir  John  has  caused  her  to  be  plundered,  Lady 
Pakington  sends  her  wrongs  to  the  Privy  Council,  and 
begs  to  have  a  general  warrant  of  search  for  her  stolen 
trunks.  This  piece  of  domestic  comedy  stands  solemnly 
recorded  in  the  Council-books :  — 

March  the  seventh,  1615. 
Present : 

George  Abbott,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

Thomas  Howard  Earl  of  Suffolk,  Lord  Treasurer. 

Edward  Somerset  Earl  of  Worcester,  Lord  Privy  Seal. 

William  Herbert  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Lord  Chamberlain. 

The  Earl  of  Dunfermline. 

The  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

Lord  Knollys. 

Sir  Ralph  Winwood,  First  Secretary  of  State. 

A  GENERAL  WARRANT  DIRECTED  TO  ALL  His  MAJESTY'S 
PUBLIC  OFFICERS. 

"  Whereas  complaint  hath  been  made  unto  us  by  the 
11* 


250  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  9.  Lady  Pakington,  wife  to  Sir  John  Pakington,  knight, 
that,  having  occasion  to  repair  to  London,  and  sending 

1  /?-|  /* 

May '  up  divers  trunks  of  apparel  and  other  necessaries  for  the 
use  of  her  person,  the  same  was  carried  aside,  and  as  yet 
detained  from  her,  to  her  great  hindrance  and  prejudice. 
These  are  therefore  to  will  and  require  you  to  make 
search  in  all  places  where  you  shall  be  directed  by  this 
bearer  for  apparel  belonging  to  the  Lady  Pakington,  and 
the  same  being  found  to  cause  it  to  be  delivered  to  this 
bearer  for  her  use." 

This  warrant  to  search  for  Lady  Pakington's  hoods  and 
jerkins,  fans,  ruffs,  and  farthingales,  is  signed  by  the 
Archbishop,  the  Lord  Treasurer,  and  the  rest ! 

10.  It  may  for  charity  be  hoped  the  poor  lady  finds 
her  trunks,  though  the  Council-books  say  no  more  about 
them.  Certain  it  is  that  when  she  again  goes  home  to 
Westwood  Park  she  nags  and  frets  Sir  John,  and  not 
Sir  John  alone.  Two  of  her  girls  are  now  married,  and 
she  does  her  very  worst  to  make  their  husbands  as  miser- 
able as  her  own.  How  Mervin  Touchet  bears  her  tongue 
we  are  not  told ;  but  this  young  lord  being  rather  crazed, 
and  exceedingly  vicious  and  tyrannical,  it  is  likely  enough 
that  he  submits,  as  such  men  do,  to  the  woman's  cold, 
dry,  dogged  will.  Not  so,  Francis  Bacon,  who  insists  to 
her  surprise  and  rage,  on  being  the  master  in  his  own 
house.  When  she  tries  on  him  the  arts  which  have  some- 

10.  Montagu,  xiii.  63. 


LADY  PAKINGTON.  251 

times  roused,  but  more  frequently  have  tamed  Sir  John,    X.  10. 
he  tells  her  in  the  plainest  words  to  mind  her  own  busi- 

1  £\1  f\ 

ness,  and  mind  it  better  than  she  has  done.     He  even 

May. 

shuts  his  door  upon  her  when  he  finds  her  naught.  If 
she  hints  in  her  own  sweet  way  that,  should  he  turn  his 
wife  out  of  the  house,  as  she  supposes  he  soon  will,  now 
that  he  has  turned  his  deaf  side  to  her  mother's  counsels, 
she  will  receive  her  back  from  him,  and  give  her,  the  poor 
outraged  thing,  a  home,  Bacon  quietly  reminds  her  that, 
considering  what  is  passed,  and  who  has  been  already  cast 
off  once,  it  is  more  likely  that  she  will  come  to  beg  a  room 
at  Gorhambury  than  that  Lady  Bacon  will  need  to  seek 
one  at  West  wood  Park. 

This  letter  is  in  Montagu ;  but  though  curious  to  the 
last  degree,  it  has  passed  unnoticed  the  eye  of  every 
writer  of  Bacon's  life,  because  the  relation  of  Bacon  to 
Lady  Pakington  has  not  been  known.  I  reproduce  it  in 
connection  with  the  domestic  facts  to  which  it  belongs, 
and  which/it  helps  to  explain. 

To  MY  LADY  PAKINGTON,  IN  ANSWER  TO  A  MESSAGE  BY 

HER  SENT. 

MADAM,  —  , 

• 

You  shall  with  right  good-will  be  made  acquainted 
with  anything  that  concerneth  your  daughters,  if  you 
bear  a  mind  of  love  and  concord,  otherwise  you  must  be 
content  to  be  a  stranger  unto  us ;  for  I  may  not  be  so  un- 
wise as  to  suffer  you  to  be  an  author  or  occasion  of  dissen- 


252  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  10,    sion  between  your  daughters  and  their  husbands,  having 

seen  so  much  misery  of  that  in  yourself.     And  above  all 
ifiifi 
Ma       things  I  will  turn  back  your  kindness,  in  which  you  say 

you  will  receive  my  wife  if  she  be  cast  off ;  for  it  is  much 
more  likely  we  have  occasion  to  receive  you  being  cast 
off,  if  you  remember  what  is  passed.  But  it  is  time  to 
make  an  end  of  those  follies,  and  you  shall  at  this  time 
pardon  me  this  one  fault  of  writing  to  you ;  for  I  mean 
to  do  it  no  more  till  you  use  me  and  respect  me  as  jo\\ 
ought.  So,  wishing  you  better  than  it  seemeth  you  will 
draw  upon  yourself, 

I  rest  yours, 

FE.  BACON. 

11.  The  merciful  part  which  Bacon,  as  Attorney- 
General,  plays  in  the  release  of  Sir  William  Monson  and 
Sir  Thomas  Monson  from  the  Tower,  having  escaped  the 
researches  of  Basil  Montagu,  has  escaped  the  criticisms 
of  Lord  Campbell.  Yet  the  facts  of  this  interference 
embrace  a  continuation  of  the  duel  with  Coke,  and  are 
essential  to  an  understanding  of  some  of  the  remoter 
causes  of  Bacon's  fall. 

In  the  first  warm  days  of  discovery  the  two  Monsons 
were,  flung  into  the  Tower.  The  proof  would  have  gone 
hard  against  them.  They  were  Papists.  They  were 
friends  of  Northampton.  They  were  intimate  with  Lady 

11.  Waad's  Statement,  Sept.  1615,  S.  P.  0. ;  Coke's  Memorandum,  Sept.  11, 
1615,  Jan.  8, 1616,  S.  P.  0. ;  James  to  the  Commissioners,  Oct.  21, 1615,  S.  P.  0.  ; 
Coke  to  the  King,  Dec.  4, 1615,  S.  P.  0. ;  Sir  Thomas  Monson  to  Coke,  Dec.  5, 
1615,  S.  P.  0. 


INTERCEDES  FOB  THE  MONSONS.  253 

Somerset.      Sir  William  Monson  was  the   secret  agent    X.  11. 
of  the  Spanish  Ambassador.     Sir  Thomas  had  been  the 

tfitfl 

means  of  placing  Weston  in  Overbury's  cell.  Any  actual  j^ 
participation  in  the  murder  has  never  yet  been  proved 
against  either  of  them ;  yet  in  the  flush  and  anger  of 
the  public,  more  could  have  been  brought  against  them 
than  any  twelve  Protestant  jurors  would  have  asked  in 
order  to  their  condemnation.  Guildhall  would  have  pro- 
nounced them  guilty,  as  King's  Bench  had  pronounced 
Anne  Turner  guilty,  and  Coke  would  most  gladly  have 
sent  them  to  the  gallows  or  the  block. 

But  Bacon  feels  that,  now  the  King  has  resolved  to 
pardon  Somerset  and  his  guilty  wife,  the  Monsons  cannot 
be  put  to  death  without  shocking  all  reasonable,  con- 
scientious men.  They  are  Catholics ;  but  he  cannot  treat 
their  religion  as  a  crime.  Coke  is  furious.  As  one  of 
the  four  commissioners  for  the  prosecution,  he  has  made 
a  vast  collection  of  secret  papers  on  the  subject ;  these 
papers  he  refuses  to  give  up ;  and  from  threats  which 
he  has  used  on  hearing  that  he  may  be  balked  of  his 
prey,  it  is  feared  that  in  his  fury  he  may  send  them  to 
the  press. 

12.  The  advocates  of  mercy  hie  to  the  King.  James 
commands  Bacon  to  require  from  Coke  the  surrender 
of  all  these  documents  for  his  Majesty's  use.  The  At- 
torney-General thereupon  writes  to  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice :  — 

12.  Bacon  to  Coke,  April  16,  1616,  S.  P.  0.;  Carew  to  Roe,  Jan.  18,  1617, 
S.  P.  0. 


254  FRANCIS  BACON. 

BACON  TO  COKE. 

1616. 

May.  MY  LORD,  — 

I  received  yesternight  express  commandments  from 
his  Majesty  to  require  from  your  Lordship,  in  his  Majes- 
ty's name,  all  and  every  such  examinations  as  are  in 
your  Lordship's  hands  of  Sir  William  Monson  for  his 
Majesty's  present  service.  Therefore,  I  pray  your  Lord- 
ship either  send  them  presently,  sealed  up,  by  your  ser- 
vant, or,  if  you  think  it  needful,  I  will  come  to  you  my- 
self and  receive  them  with  mine  own  hands.  I  rest,  your 
Lordship's  loving  friend,  to  command, 

FR.  BACON. 

This  Tuesday,  at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  16th  of 
April,  1616. 

Imagine  the  rage  of  Coke  !  No  evidence  to  connect  Sir 
William  with  the  murderous  scenes  in  the  Tower  has 
been  discovered,  while  the  proofs  of  his  connection  with 
the  Spanish  Ambassador,  and  of  his  disbursements  of 
money  to  the  partisans  of  Spain,  are  of  a  kind  not  to  be 
produced  by  the  king  in  a  court  of  law. 

13.  Sir  Thomas  Monson's  case  is  far  more  difficult 
than  Sir  William's ;  for  Sir  Thomas  was  in  daily  com- 
munication with  Helwys  when  the  poisons  were  being 

13.  Coke  to  the  King,  Feb.  8,  1616,  S.  P.  0.;  Queries  by  Coke,  Feb.  1616, 
S.  P.  0. ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  June  8,  1616,  S.  P.  0. 


CASE  OF   COMMENDAMS.  255 

given,  and  his  warm  recommendation  of  Weston  first    X.  13. 

encouraged   Helwys   to  permit  and   then  to  share  the 

1616. 
crime.     Yet  a  careful  examination  of  the  mass  of  evi-     j^. 

dence  in  the  State  Paper  Office  must  convince  a  lawyer 
that  Monson  was  no  worse  than  Northampton's  tool  and 
dupe.  He  was  guilty  of  Romanism,  —  a  crime  which 
Coke,  and  many  bigots  like  Coke,  would  have  punished 
with  the  drop.  He  was  guilty,  too,  of  grave  indiscretion 
and  of  crawling  subserviency  towards  Northampton. 
How  could  the  Crown  lawyers  deal  with  such  a  case  ? 
Monson  had  undergone  a  public  examination,  not  a 
public  trial.  Coke  would  have  his  life. 

14.  But  while  the  two  Monsons  lie  in  the  Tower,  each     Jm». 
loud  in  his  denial  of  guilt,  yet  scared  in  soul  by  the 
violence  and  injustice  of  his  adversaries,  Coke   himself, 
the  most  eager  and  malicious  of  those  adversaries,  crashes 
down  suddenly  from  his  high  place. 

That  command  to  give  up  the  confessions  and  examina- 
tions of  Sir  "William  must  have  gone  to  the  quick ;  as  it 
not  only  robs  him  of  the  power  to  bully  and  hang  a  man 
for  whose  creed  he  has  no  tolerance,  but  takes  from  him 
a  case  in  which  he  feels  a  lawyer's  pride,  to  give  it  over 
to  one  whom  of  all  living  man  he  most  loathes  and  fears. 
This  wrong  he  resents  in  word  and  deed.  Seeing  scorn 
and  insult  on  the  brow  of  a  prince  from  whom  he  hoped 
to  win  smiles  and  bounty,  he  droops  into  discontent  and 
opposition.  In  the  great  case  of  Commendams  he  comes 
into  fatal  collision  with  the  King. 

14.  Carew  to  Roe,  Jan.  18,  1617,  S.  P.  0. 


256  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  15.  15.  The  case  of  Commendams,  on  the  law  of  which 
Egerton  and  Bacon  differ  from  Coke,  may  be  explained 

June-  in  a  few  words.  A  living  in  commendam  was  in  the 
same  position  as  a  ward  in  custody  ;  it  was  committed  to 
some  one's  care.  The  custom  of  such  holdings  in  the 
church  arose  in  troublous  times,  when  a  Genseric  was  in 
Rome  or  an  Attila  in  Gaul ;  then  sees  and  parishes,  left 
without  occupants,  were  given  in  commendam  to  the 
nearest  bishop  or  the  nearest  priest.  In  time  the  Popes 
discovered  in  this  system  of  holding  sees  or  livings  a 
means  of  rewarding  a  loyal  friend  or  buying  off  a  for- 
midable foe.  In  England,  too,  the  plan  had  its  use  and 
its  abuse.  Some  of  the  livings  were  so  rich,  while  some 
of  the  sees  were  so  poor,  that  a  clergyman  might  lose  in 
worldly  state  by  his  translation  to  the  bench  of  spiritual 
peers.  Such  a  fact,  it  is  obvious,  must  have  limited  the 
choice  of  the  Crown,  in  case  of  vacancy  among  the  bish- 
ops, to  the  lower  or  less  fortunate  ranks  of  the  clergy,  — 
a  limitation  not  to  be  desired  or  endured,  had  not  the 
Crown,  when  succeeding  to  the  rights  of  the  Holy  Chair, 
inherited  the  power  of  granting  livings  in  commendam. 
Yet  such  a  power  was  open  to  grave  abuse.  Paulo 
Sarpi  has  denounced  the  evils  which  it  brought  upon 
Roman  Catholic  communities,  where  a  Pope's  bastard 
or  a  Cardinal's  nephew,  under  the  title  of  a  holder  in 
commendam,  swept  the  revenues  of  a  province  into  his 
private  purse. 

15.  Storia  del  Concilio  Tridentino,  1629 ;  Collier's  Ecclesiastical  History  of 
Great  Britain,  vii.  389;  Council  Reg.,  June  6,  1616. 


CASE   OF   COMMENDAMS.  257 

While  Coke  is  in  his  rage,  the  case  of  a  living  held  in    X.  15. 

commendam  conies  before  the  King's  Bench.     It  is  a  pri- 

1616. 
vate  cause  ;  but  Sergeant  Chibborne,  in  the  course  of  his     June< 

speech,  goes  out  of  his  way  to  contest  the  King's  power 
to  grant  commendams  at  all.  Fearful  lest  the  angry 
Chief  Justice  may  pronounce  a  verdict  touching  the 
Crown,  without  the  Crown  being  heard  in  its  defence, 
James  mounts  a  messenger  for  London  commanding 
Bilson  and  Winwood  to  attend  the  next  sitting  of  the 
Court  of  King's  Bench  and  report  to  him  the  arguments 
there  used.  Winwood  being  sick,  Bilson,  Bishop  of 
Winchester,  is  the  sole  witness  ;  but  his  report  alarms 
the  King  in  high  degree,  for  he  hears  Chibborne  con- 
tend that  the  Crown  has  no  power  to  grant  livings  or 
sees  in  commendam  save  in  cases  of  extreme  need ;  and 
that  no  such  need  can  arise  in  England,  where  no  man  is 
bound  to  keep  hospitality  beyond  his  means. 

16.  Informed  by  Bilson  of  what  has  passed  in  the 
King's  Bench,  James  sees  the  gravity  of  his  position, 
and  commands  Bacon  to  write  and  require  Coke  to  put 
off  the  further  hearing  of  this  case  until  he,  the  King, 
can  come  to  town  and  consult  the  judges.  This  com- 
mand a  servant  carries  from  Gray's  Inn  to  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice's  room  in  Sergeants'  Inn  ;  when  Coke, 
who  is  just  setting  out  for  Westminster  Hall,  sends 
his  own  man  to  Gray's  Inn  to  beg  that  Mr.  Attorney 

16.  The  Judges  to  James,  April  2T,  1616,  S.  P.  0. ;  James  to  the  Judges, 
CouucU  Reg.,  June  6,  1616. 

Q 


258  FRANCIS   BACON. 

X.  16.    will   give  to  each  of  the   twelve  judges  a  copy  of  his 
note. 

Coke's  presence  has  been  required  in  the  Court  of 
Chancery  to  assist  in  hearing  a  case  for  the  Crown  ; 
but  setting  the  immediate  duty  of  the  day  aside,  defy- 
ing the  royal  command,  as  conveyed  through  Bacon, 
he  goes  down  to  Westminster,  takes  his  seat  in  the 
King's  Bench,  and  calls  the  forbidden1  case.  After  a 
further  hearing  he  takes  the  judges  to  his  rooms  in 
Sergeants'  Inn,  where  he  persuades  them  to  sign  a  let- 
ter to  the  King,  throwing  the  blame  of  his  disobedience 
on  Bacon,  whose  request  for  a  posponement  of  the  trial 
they  condemn  as  contrary  to  law  and  to  the  oaths  of 
a  judge. 

17.  James  reads  this  letter  with  amazement.  If  his 
rage  against  Coke,  and  his  fears  of  encroachment,  do 
not  lure  him  one  day  sooner  from  his  dogs  and  deer, 
he  pens  a  smart  rebuke  to  the  judges,  who,  when  they 
see  how  the  tide  sets,'  begin  to  feel  heartily  ashamed  of 
what  they  have  signed.  They  know,  indeed,  that  the 
reasons  given  by  Coke  are  a  mere  pretence  ;  that  Ba- 
con's letter  was  sent  by  command  ;  that  the  Crown  has 
power  by  law  to  grant  livings  in  commendam ;  and 
that  to  delay  the  hearing  until  James  could  arrive  in 
town  and  lay  his  arguments  before  them  would  neither 
interfere  with  justice  nor  disturb  their  oaths.  All 
these  points  of  the  case  the  King  sets  forth  in  his 

17.  Council  Reg.,  June  6,  1616. 


COKE   BEFORE   THE   COUNCIL.  259 

note  with  unsparing  ire.     He   ends  by  once  again,  in    X.  17. 
his  own  words  and  in  his  own  name,  insisting  that  the 

1/?-t/? 

hearing  shall   be   stayed,   referring   them,   with  a  good     Jaw 
sense  of  which   he  is   seldom  capable,  to  his  Attorney- 
General  for  his  opinions  on  particular  points. 

18.  Ambling  to  town  for  the  Whitsun  games,  he  Jnne6. 
sends  for  his  twelve  judges  to  the  palace.  Of  the 
many  comedies  played  in  that  superb  political  theatre, 
few  have  been  so  droll  as  this  trial  of  the  judges  by 
the  King.  All  the  great  officers  of  state  are  present ; 
the  King  himself,  Archbishop  Abbott  and  Bishop  Bil- 
son,  Lord  Chancellor  Egerton  and  Lord  Treasurer  Suf- 
folk, Win  wood  Secretary  of  State,  and  Zouch  Lord 
Warden  of  the  Cinque  Ports,  together  with  a  host  of 
inferior  councillors  and  clerks.  Bacon  stands  there  to 
defend  himself.  Coke,  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council, 
takes  his  seat. 

The  men  whose  lives  have  been  one  long  duel,  who 
have  pleaded  in  the  same  courts,  who  have  made  love 
to  the  same  woman,  who  have  served  in  the  same  House 
of  Commons,  who  for  thirty-five  years  have  been  at  guard 
and  thrust,  appear  in  a  scene  which  can  only  end  in  dis- 
aster for  one  of  them,  perhaps  in  ruin  for  both.  James 
opens  the  inquiry.  Bilson  states  what  he  heard  in  the 
King's  Bench.  Bacon's  letter  and  Coke's  reply  are  put 
in  as  evidence  and  read.  Eleven  of  the  judges  see  their 
error.  Falling  on  their  knees,  they  confess  their  fault 

18.  Council  Reg.,  June  6,  1616. 


260  FRANCIS   BACON. 

X.  18.    and  implore   the   King's  most   gracious   pardon.     Coke 

alone,  if  wrong  at  first,  has  courage  enough  to  be  wrong 
June  e    a*  ^as* '    mamtaining  that   the   facts  of  his   note  were 

true,  and  that  Mr.  Attorney's  message  was  against  his 

oath. 

James  turns  to  his  Chancellor ;   but  Egerton,  before 

pronouncing  judgment,  begs,  as  the  case  involves  points 

of  law,  that  Bacon  may  first  be  heard. 

19.  Bacon  rises.     In  the  portrait  of  Van  Somers,  paint- 
ed a  few  weeks  later,  we  see  him  as  he  stands  confronting 
Coke.     Thirty-six  years   have   passed  since   he   entered 
on  the  fag  and  contest  of  the  world  ;  but  thirty-six  years 
of  toil,  thought,  study,  disappointment,  and  success,  have 
neither  soured  his  blood  nor  disturbed  the  beauty  of  his 
face.     The  bust  of  Somers  is  the  bust  of  Hilyard  come 
to  its  perfect  growth.     Brow  broad  and  solid ;  eye  quick 
yet    mild ;   nose   straight   and   strong,  of  the   pure   old 
English  type  ;  beard  trim  and  dainty,  as  of  one  to  whom 
grace  is  nature  ;   over  all  the  countenance  a  bold,  soft, 
kindling  light ;  an  infinite  sense  of  power  and  subtlety 
and  humor,  unmixed  with  any  trace  of  pride. 

20.  Turning  to  the   King  he  shows,  by  proofs  which 
seem  superfluous,  tha,t  in  staying  the  hearing  Coke  would 
have  hurt  no  law,  broken   no  oath.     The   Lord   Chief 


19.  The  portrait  of  Van  Somers  is  at  Gorhambury. 

20.  Council    Reg.,  June   6,   1616;    Sherborne  to   Carleton,  June    12,   1616, 
S.  P.  0.;  Gerard  to  Carleton,  June  14,  1616,  S.  P.  0. 


FALL    OF   COKE.  261 

Justice  starts  to  his  feet ;   the  King's  counsel,  he  says,    X.  20. 
may  plead  before  the  judges,  they  must  not  dispute  with 

1  fit  f\ 

them.     Bacon  answers  for  his  order  and  for  himself,  that 

June  o. 

a  King's  counsel  is,  by  his  office  and  his  oath,  free  to 
proceed  or  declare  against  any  man,  against  the  great- 
est lord  in  the  kingdom,  even  against  any  body  of  men, 
though  they  were  peers  and  judges ;  and  he  demands 
from  the  King's  justice  that  this  spirt  of  bad  temper 
and  worse  law  shall  be  withdrawn.  James  sides  with 
his  Attorney-General,  and  Coke  has  to  eat  his  words. 

The  Lord  Chancellor  now  asks  that  the  oath  of  a 
judge  may  be  read ;  and  when  Yelverton  has  done  this, 
he  pronounces  judgment  wholly  against  Coke.  In  Eger- 
ton's  verdict  the  judges  all  concur ;  promising  for  them- 
selves to  respect  all  future  messages  from  the  Crown. 
Coke  alone  answers  that  he  will  do  what  he  shall  find 
fit  for  a  judge. 

The  fall  of  this  arrogant  man  is  soon  noised  in  the 
Strand  and  at  St.  Paul's. 

21.  Bacon  is  sworn  a  member  of  the  Privy  Council;    june9. 
as  in   every  stage  of  his   rise,  without   a  bribe.     The 
very  first  act  of  this  new  Councillor,  who,  on  grounds 
of  humanity,  is  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  save  a  couple 
of  Papists  from  the  gallows,  is  to  induce  the  favorite  and 
his  master  to  restore  the  famous  Puritan  preacher  Doc-   Junem 
tor  Burgess   to  his   ministry  in  the  Church.     Burgess 

21.  Council  Reg.,  June  9,  1616;  Montagu,  xiii.  233;  Carew  to  Roe,  Jan.  18, 
161V,  S.  P.  0.;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  July  5, 1617,  S.  P.  0. 


262  FRANCIS   BACON. 

X.  21.  has  long  been  silenced.  Many  congregations  wish  to  hear 
him  ;  among  others,  the  Honorable  Society  of  Gray's 

June  16.  ^nn'  Bacon  prevails,  and  the  thunders  of  the  great 
preacher  are  again  heard  at  St.  Paul's  Cross. 

juueso.  22.  Bacon  is  nominated  one  of  a  commission,  with 
the  Lord  Treasurer,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and 
other  ministers,  to  consider  a  plan  for  raising  funds  by 
selling  the  old  feudal  right  of  homage  and  by  disaffor- 
esting the  distant  and  unprofitable  Crown-lands. 

More  than  sufficient  offences  are  soon  discovered 
against  Coke  —  frauds,  contempts,  and  disobediences  — 
to  insure  a  condemnation  either  in  the  Star  Chamber  or 
in  any  court  over  which  the  Crown  can  name  the  judge. 
When  he  hears  of  this  investigation  into  his  past  life, 
the  bully  of  Westminster  Hall  lowers  his  tone.  Not 
that  his  course  on  the  bench  has  been  impure  ;  it  has, 
in  fact,  as  all  the  world  knows,  been  ostentatiously  the 
reverse  of  impure ;  yet  the  practice  of  all  the  courts 
is  so  unsafe,  the  system  of  fees  so  lax,  that  no  man  on 
the  bench  can  stand  up  against  an  accusation  brought 
by  the  Crown.  No  judge  on  the  bench  knows  better 
than  Coke  that  to  be  tried  for  a  Crown  offence  is  to  be 
condemned.  In  the  most  grovelling  key  he  prays  to  be 
spared  the  shame  of  a  public  trial ;  on  his  knees  he 
implores  the  Council  to  protect  him;  saying,  and  very 

22.  Council  to  the  Commissioners,  June  30,  1616,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Reg., 
June  26,  30,  1616;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  June  22,  1616,  S.  P.  0.;  Sherborne 
to  Carleton,  June  29,  1616,  S.  P.  0. 


FALL   OF   COKE.  263 

truly  saying,  that  any  man  in  place,  however  high  his    X.  22. 
state,  however  clean  his  hands,  may  be  crushed  by  an 

II'  1C 

indictment  laid  in  the   royal  name.     Again  and  again  June30 
he  appears  before  the  Privy  Council,  under  his  rival's 
eyes,   in  the    same    ignominious    attitude,  begging  for 
mercy  in  the  same  miserable  tone. 

The  woman  who  in  his  prosperity  was  the  torment  J«»y 
of  his  life  no  sooner  finds  him  grovelling  on  his  knees 
before  men  deaf  to  his  groans,  and  the  savings  of  his 
long  practice  at  the  bar  menaced  with  fine  and  forfeit, 
than  she  bounds  to  his  side,  makes  his  suit  her  own, 
worries  her  kinsmen  for  help,  besieges  the  Queen  with 
petitions,  and  declares  that,  come  evil  or  come  good  to 
her  husband,  she  will  share  his  fate. 

23.  Though  Anne  puts  forth  her  weakness  in  his  Oct. 
cause,  Coke  is  degraded  from  the  Council,  forbidden  to 
travel  circuit,  commanded  to  revise  his  Reports.  Vil- 
'liers  against  him,  the  poor  Queen  is  snubbed ;  and  Lady 
Hatton,  in  place  of  conciliating  those  who  might  help 
her  suit,  insults  the  favorite's  mother,  and  on  her  com- 
plaint gets  sent  away  from  court.  Coke  humbles  his 
pride,  confesses  his  fault,  nay,  darkens  his  fame  as  a 
jurist  and  a  judge,  by  stooping,  on  the  King's  demand, 
to  alter  his  Law  Reports  ;  a  confession  of  guilt  if  his 

23.  Villiers  to  Bacon,  Oct.  3, 1616,  Lambeth  MSS.  936 ;  Williams  to  Carle- 
ton,  July  3,  1616,  S.  P.  0. ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  July  6,  Oct.  26,  Nov.  9, 
14,  23,  1616,  S.  P.  0.;  Sherborne  to  Carleton,  July  11,  Oct.  5,  1616,  S.  P.  0.; 
Winwood  to  Carleton,  July  13,  1616,  S.  P.  0. ;  Egerton's  Speech  to  Montagu, 
Nov.  18,  1616,  S.  P.  0. ;  Grant  Book,  197,  198. 


264  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  23.    cases   are  false,  a   dishonest  compliance  if  he   believes 
them  true.     Even  this  last  concession  is  made  in  vain. 

l£1  & 

o^'  When  stripped  of  his  office  and  deposed  from  the 
bench,  his  wife,  who  was  going  to  make  his  cause  her 
own,  packs  up  her  furniture  and  plate,  leaps  into  her 
coach,  and  leaves  him  to  his  loneliness  and  rage.  His 
seat  in  the  King's  Bench  is  offered  to  Bacon  and  de- 
clined. Sir  Henry  Montagu,  Recorder  of  London,  a 
man  of  very  great  wealth  and  very  high  abilities  as'  a 
lawyer,  grandson  of  Bluff  King  Hal's  famous  Lord 
Chief  Justice,  and  founder  of  the  ducal  line  of  Man- 
chester, gets  his  place. 

HOT.  24.  The  fall  of  Coke  throws  light  into  the  Tower. 
Sir  Thomas  Monson  gains  the  liberty  of  that  fortress. 
Sure  that  Monson  ought  not  to  be  tried,  since  it  has 
become  improbable  that  he  could  be  convicted  and  im- 
possible that  he  could  be  hung,  Bacon  is  not  the  less 
sure  that  for  the  King's  credit  and  for  Monson's  own 
safety  he  ought  not  to  be  merely  set  free.  He  proposes, 
therefore,  with  the  full  concurrence  of  Sir  Henry  Yel- 
.verton,  that  a  pardon  shall  be  granted  under  the  Seal, 
reciting  Monson's  plea  of  innocence,  the  dubious  proofs 
against  him,  and  the  gracious  clemency  of  the  King. 
Egerton  backs  this  compromise  ;  for  he  too,  though 
himself  a  convert  from  the  Church  of  Rome,  believes 
with  Bacon  that  a  gentleman  may  be  a  Papist  without 

24.  Council  Reg.,  Ang.  10,  1616;  Bacon  to  James,  Dec.  7,  1616,  S.  P.  0.; 
Statement  of  the  Case  of  Sir  Thomas  Monson,  Feb.  12,  1617,  S.  P.  0. 


ADVISES   PARDON  FOR   SIR   T.   MONSON.  265 

being   a  traitor.      In  his  own  name  and  that  of  Yel-    X.  24. 

verton,  Bacon  communicates  this  plan  to  James  :  — 

1616. 

BACON  TO  KING  JAMES. 

7th  of  December,  1616.         Dec.  y. 
IT  MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  MOST  EXCELLENT   MAJESTY, — 

According  to  your  pleasure,  signified  unto  me,  your 
Attorney,  by  word  of  mouth,  we  have  considered  of  the 
state  of  Sir  Thomas  Monson's  case,  and  what  is  fit  further 
to  be  done  in  it,  and  we  are  of  opinion,  —  first,  that  it  is 
altogether  unfit  to  have  a  proceeding  to  a  trial,  both  be- 
cause the  evidence  itself  (for  so  much  as  we  know  of  it) 
is  conjectural,  as  also  for  that  to  rip  up  those  matters  now 
will  neither  be  agreeable  to  the  justice  nor  to  the  mercy 
formally  used  by  your  Majesty  towards  others  ;  secondly, 
to  do  nothing  in  it  is  neither  safe  for  the  gentleman,  nor 
honorable  (as  we  conceive)  for  your  Majesty,  whose  care 
of  justice  useth  not  to  faint  or  become  weary  in  the  latter 
end.  Therefore  we  are  of  opinion  that  it  is  a  case  fit  for 
your  Majesty's  pardon,  as  upon  doubtful  evidence,  and 
that  Sir  Thomas  Monson  plead  the  same  publicly,  with 
such  protestations  of  his  innocency  as  he  thinks  good, 
and  so  the  matter  may  come  to  a  regular  and  just  period, 
wherein  the  very  reading  of  the  pardon,  which  shall  re- 
cite the  evidence  to  be  doubtful  and  conjectural,  added  to 
his  own  protestations,  is  as  much  for  the  reputation  of 
the  gentleman  as  we  think  convenient,  considering  how 
things  have  formerly  passed.  Hereupon  we  have  advised 
12 


266  FRANCIS   BACON. 

X.  24.    with  the  Lord  Chancellor,  whom  we  find  of  the  same 
opinion.     All  which,  nevertheless,  we,  in  all  humbleness, 
P^  7     submit  to  your  Majesty's  better  judgment. 
Your  Majesty's  most  humble 

and  most  bounden  servants, 
FR.  BACON, 
HENRY  YELVERTON. 

1617.  The  advice  is  welcome.  A  pardon,  drawn  up  in  this 
Feb-12'  sense,  passes  under  the  Seal.  Monson,  brought  up  at 
the  bar  of  the  King's  Bench  and  this  paper  read  to  him, 
declares  his  innocence  once  more,  protests  that  his  par- 
don should  be  read  as  evidence  of  his  innocence,  not  of 
his  guilt.  Montagu,  now  Chief  Justice,  tells  him  it  may 
be  read  in  this  sense,  and  Monson  with  a  joyful  heart 
goes  home  from  the  Tower. 

25.  Egerton  is  sick.  Though  he  will  not  give  up  the 
Seals,  as  Villiers  presses  him  to  do,  while  he  can  sign  his 
name,  he  begins  to  divest  himself  of  the  minor  offices  and 
responsibilities  of  the  world  ;  among  other  changes  yield- 
ing the  Stewardship  of  St.  Albans  to  the  friend  who  now 
sits  by  his  bed,  lightening  his  pains  and  cares,  and  whom 
he,  like  all  the  world,  has  sealed  for  his  successor  in  the 
Court  of  Chancery.  Among  the  public  affairs  in  which 
Bacon  is  employed  are,  the  Disorders  in  our  Trade  with 
Spam,  and  a  Report  touching  a  child  supposed  to  have 

25.  Add.  MSS.  19,  402;  Sherborne  to  Carleton,  Feb.  8,  1617,  S.  P/0.;  Conn- 
en  Reg.,  Feb.  2,  1617. 


RUMORED   OFFSPRING   OF   ARABELLA   STUART.  267 

been  left  by  Lady  Arabella  Stuart.     The  first  is  referred    X.  25. 
to  Bacon  alone,  with  power  to  collect  evidence  and  to 

1fi17 

offer  remedies  for  the  wrong.  The  second  concerns  the  Feb  ^ 
King  more  nearly  than  the  murder  of  English  crews,  the 
confiscation  of  English  goods.  This  story  of  a  royal  child 
he  refers  to  four  commissioners,  the  highest  functionaries 
of  the  state  —  Abbott,  Suffolk,  Winwood,  and  Bacon  ; 
Bacon,  on  whom  the  burden  of  inquiry  falls,  represent- 
ing the  great  lawyer  now  lying  sick  at  York  House. 

26.  After  Lady  Arabella's  death  in  the  Tower  a  whis-  Feb.  2. 
per  flew  abroad  that  her  romantic  marriage  had  not  been 
altogether  barren  ;  that  she  had  given  birth  to  a  child 
while  confined  in  Sir  Thomas  Parry's  house  at  Lambeth ; 
and  that  this  heir  of  the  Seymours  was  still  alive.  The 
story  has  a  deep  and  romantic  interest.  If  there  be  such 
a  child,  it  stands  very  near  the  throne,  —  uniting,  as  it 
must,  in  one  head  the  rival  claims  of  the  Seymour  and 
Lennox  lines  of  descent  from  Henry  the  Seventh  ;  there- 
fore a  rival,  as  some  folks  think,  to  the  King's  own  chil- 
dren, and  one  who  may  become  truly  formidable  should 
the  rickety  Prince  of  Wales  not  live.  Such  a  birth  was 
not  unlikely  in  itself.  The  Lady  Arabella  was  only 
thirty-six  when  she  fell  in  love  and  secretly  gave  her 
hand  to  William  Seymour.  They  were  married  weeks 
before  their  amour  was  discovered.  Even  when  parted 
by  force,  their  love  and  wit  found  means  for  meeting. 
Even  when  Seymour  was  in  the  Tower,  he  so  far  won 

26.  CouncU  Reg.,  Feb.  2, 16,  1617. 


268  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  26.  upon  his  jailer  by  his  youth,  his  misery,  or  his  gold,  that 
he  was  frequently  allowed  to  go  up  the  river  and  see  his 

Feb  2  wife'  Nothing,  therefore,  in  the  tale  of  a  child  having 
been  born  to  all  this  love  appears  improbable  to  men 
who  fear  or  hate  the  King,  while  the  motives  for  con- 
cealment, if  it  has  been  born,  are  clear  to  all.  James 
is  profoundly  moved.  A  new  Perkin  Warbeck  menaces 
his  throne. 

True  or  false,  the  story  is  a  serious  fact  for  James  and 
for  his  dynasty :  not  less  grave  for  them  if  false  than  true ; 
unless  it.  can  be  wholly  and  forever  rooted  out  from  the 
minds  of  men.  Hence  the  commission.  For  a  time  the 
mystery  defies  even  Bacon's  subtlety  of  search  and  proof. 
It  is  always  hard  to  prove  a  negative, — most  hard  in  such 
a  case  as  this.  The  commissioners  may  convince  them- 
selves ;  they  have  to  convince  a  credulous  world,  at  the 
risk  of  leaving  that  world  open  to  seduction  by  any  knave 
who  may  choose  to  play  his  head  against  a  crown.  They 
send  for  Seymour,  who  knows  nothing  or  will  tell  them 
nothing.  They  send  for  Sir  John  Keys  and  Doctor 
Mountford,  physicians  to  the  royal  lady.  They  question 
Edward  Kirton  and  Edward  Reeves,  her  body  servants. 
None  of  these  will  own  to  knowledge  of  the  birth  of  any 
child.  Such  evidence  is,  however,  far  from  decisive. 
Where  are  Lady  Arabella's  waiting-women  ? 

It  is  known  that,  while  imprisoned  in  Parry's  house, 
Arabella's  waiting-woman  was  called  Ann  Bradshaw. 
Ann  has  dropped  out  of  sight,  though  no  one  thinks  that 
she  is  dead.  Where  is  she  ?  The  Seymours  don't  know. 


RUMORED   OFFSPRING   OF   ARABELLA   STUART.          269 

Her  old  friends  and  fellow-servants  don't  know.     Such    X.  26. 
a  fact  is  of  itself  suspicious.     Is  the  missing  maid  watch- 
ing over  the  missing  child  ?     There  must  be  an  end  of     Feb  2. 
these  questions.     If  alive,  and  between  the  four  seas,  Ann 
must  be  found ;  for  on  her  testimony  hang  the  chances 
of  a  civil  war. 

A  search  through  every  shire  from  Exe  to  Tweed  dis- 
covers her  in  Duffield,  —  an  obscure  village  lost  among 
the  snows  of  the  Peak.  Though  old,  full  of  aches  and 
pains,  her  memory  is  good :  she  remembers  everything 
about  her  unhappy  mistress,  was  with  her  day  and  night 
in  Parry's  house,  and  is  positive  she  never  had  a  child. 
The  local  magistrates  dare  not  jolt  her  off  to  London 
through  the  winter  cold,  the  doctors  saying  she  would 
die  on  the  road.  A  message  speeds  to  Bacon.  Not  an 
hour  is  to  be  lost ;  the  weal  of  millions  hangs  on  the 
words  of  this  sick  creature ;  so  he  mounts  for  Duffield 
Sir  Clement  Edmondes,  a  trusty  Clerk  of  the  Privy 
Council,  to  see  the  woman  and  take  her  important  evi- 
dence on  oath.  Clement  sends  in  his  report.  The  tale 
sworn  by  the  waiting-woman  convinces  the  commission- 
ers and  the  Council  that  the  rumor  of  a  young  Sey- 
mour, born  of  Lady  Arabella,  being  in  existence  is  a  lie. 
In  witness  of  this  inquiry,  and  of  this  result,  James 
causes  an  elaborate  statement  of  the  facts  to  be  inserted 
in  the  Council  Register,  signed  by  George  Abbott, 
Thomas  Howard,  Ralph  Winwood,  and  Francis  Bacon. 
The  search  which  satisfies  the  Council  seems  to  satisfy 
mankind.  It  is,  indeed,  amazing  that,  during  all  the 


270  FRANCIS  BACON. 

X.  26.    troubles  and  illusions  of  the  succeeding  forty  years,  no 

one  ever  assumed  the  character  of  Lady  Arabella's  son. 
1617. 

Mw.  7.  27.  Four  weeks  after  closing  this  delicate  inquiry 
Bacon  receives  the  Seals.  Egerton's  love  bears  fruit ; 
but  the  risks  of  failure  in  his  suit  have  indeed  been  great 
for  Buckingham  makes  no  secret  of  his  wish  to  ruin  the 
old  Chancellor  and  sell  his  place.  While  the  favorite 
haggles  with  aspirants  for  the  office  about  its  price,  the 
King  himself  puts  the  Seals  into  Bacon's  hands. 

Riding  down  to  York  House,  he  thanks  his  old  friend, 
and  in  his  Majesty's  name  presents  him  with  the  patent 
of  an  Earl.  He  now  turns  to  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
not  in  despair  at  the  long  arrears,  but  with  confident 
sense  of  his  power  to  conquer  the  vast  accumulation  of 
work.  The  rules  which  he  lays  down,  the  spirit  in  which 
he  decides,  are  beyond  all  praise.  Nor  do  the  labors  of 
his  Court,  the  ceremonial  of  his  rank,  and  the  sittings 
of  the  Council  consume  his  strength.  He  instructs 
Buckingham  in  the  arts  of  government.  He  toils  at  his 
Novum  Organum.  Within  a  week  of  his  investiture  the 

*iar.  17  King  leaves  London  for  the  Northern  Kingdom,  calling 
Bacon  to  the  exercise  of  very  extraordinary  powers.  In 
commission  with  Pembroke,  Suffolk,  and  a  single  secre- 
tary, he  receives  power  to  pardon  able-bodied  offenders 
under  sentence  of  death,  save  only  those  convicted  of 

27.  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  7,  24,  1617;  Grant  Book,  200;  Chamberlain  to  Carle 
ton,  Mar.  15,  1617,  S.  P.  0. ;  Commission  to  Abbott,  Bacon,  and  others,  Mar. 
17, 1617,  S.  P.  0. 


RECEIVES   THE   SEALS.  271 


rape,  burglary,  witchcraft,  and  wilful  murder,  and  send    X.  27. 
them  over  sea.     In  commission  with  Abbott  and  others, 
he  is  authorized  to  pass   securities  for  loans,  to  issue    Mar  17 
proclamations,  to  conduct  the  Irish  business,  to  perfect 
the  ecclesiastical  commission,  and  generally  to  conduct 
the   government  of  the   realm.     Yet,   in   spite   of  this 
enormous  addition  to  his  active  duties,  he  clears  off  the 
whole  arrears  of  Chancery  causes  by  the  end  of  June. 


272  FRANCIS  BACON. 


CHAPTER    XI. 

LORD    CHANCELLOR. 

XL  1.        1.  IN  striding  over  Coke's  head  to  the  Mace  and  Seals, 

—      Bacon  puts  the  crown  to  his  many  offences  against  that 

'    wealthy  and  vindictive  foe.     Their  lives  have  been  spent 

July. 

in  a  daily  contest  for  rank,  love,  place,  and  power.  Up 
to  the  present  year  Coke  has  been  able  to  keep  in 
front.  He  made  more  money,  he  won  Lady  Hatton, 
he  first  got  office  under  the  Crown.  'He  went  up  to  the 
Common  Pleas  while  Bacon  was  fighting  for  his  promo- 
tion at  the  bar.  Before  the  great  philosopher  was  com- 
missioned as  Attorney-General,  the  great  jurist  had  been 
seated  on  the  King's  Bench.  For  the  three  years  and 
four  months  that  Bacon,  as  Attorney,  waited  in  the 
Council  anteroom,  Coke  sat  at  the  board.  The  scene  is 
now  changed,  the  characters  reversed.  Within  a  few 
weeks  Coke  has  been  degraded  from  the  Council  to  make 
way  for  Bacon,  and  reduced  from  the  King's  Bench  that 
his  rival  may  feel  the  insolent  joy  of  refusing  to  accept 
his  place.  The  humiliation  has  now  been  capped  by 
Bacon  filching  from  him,  at  the  very  moment  of  his 

1.  CouncQ  Reg.,  Nov.  4, 1613;  Yelverton  to  Bacon,  Sept  3,  1617,  Lambeth 
MSS.  836. 


EGERTON'S  LATTER  DAYS.  273 

negotiation  with  Villiers,  the  Mace  and  Seals,  without    XI.  1. 
paying  for   them  one   shilling  of  those   irregular   sums 
which  he  himself  was  told  he  must  lay  down.     Such  a     July  ' 
success  enrages  the  miser  even  more  than  it  galls  the 
man. 

2.  How  can  he  drag  this  rival  down  ?  The  way  is  but 
too  easy.  Gain  the  favorite.  Virtue  is  no  protection  to 
men  in  power.  He  has  been  thrown.  Egerton  only 
escapes  an  ignominious  fall  by  the  approach  of  death. 

The  story  of  Egerton's  latter  days  has  never  yet  been 
told.  As  an  illustration  of  the  time,  it  is  in  the  highest 
degree  important  for  a  clear  comprehension  of  his  suc- 
cessor's fall. 

As  Egerton  grew  old  a  host  of  lawyers  and  ecclesiastics 
began  to  crave  the  Seals ;  conspicuous  among  these  were 
Bilson  and  Bennett,  Hobart  and  Coke.  The  Great 
Seal,  though  held  like  the  White  Staff  during  pleasure, 
changed  hands  so  rarely  that  the  possession  was  regarded 
as  one  for  life.  Pickering,  Hatton,  Bromley,  Nicholas 
Bacon,  kept  the  Seals  to  the  last,  as  Northampton,  Salis- 
bury, Dorset,  and  Burghley  kept  the  Staff.  The  rule 
applied  to  every  office  in  the  Household  and  the  State. 
Now  this  appearance  of  a  permanent  possession  gave  to 
each  holder  of  office  a  vested  right  in  it,  which  had  a 
market  value.  No  man  ever  yielded  his  place  without 
being  paid  for  it,  any  more  than  a  colonel  of  the  line 

2.  Sherborne  to  Carleton,  Feb.  23, 1617,  S.  P.  ).;  Lovelace  to  Carleton,  Mar. 
11, 1617,  S.  P.  0. 

12*  B 


274  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XI.  2.    gives  up  his  commission  without  his  price.     Death  only 
could  deprive  him.     As  Egerton  would  not  die  though 

1fi17 

Ju]  '  he  had  held  the  Seals  longer  than  any  Chancellor  since 
the  Conquest,  nor  yield  his  place  except  on  reasonable 
terms  of  surrender,  those  who  meant  to  make  a  purse  by 
the  transfer  began  to  brood  over  the  possibility  of  forcing 
him  to  yield  by  means  of  a  criminal  prosecution.  A 
sentence  in  the  House  of  Lords  would  be  legal  death. 
Once  it  were  pronounced  the  Seals  would  fall  into  the 
King's  gift.  This  was  a  new  and  perilous  game  to  play  ; 
but  the  plan  seemed  easy,  the  profits  vast.  A  trial  might 
be  made.  Any  old  lawyer  learned  in  the  vices  of  the 
times,  could  get  up  an  accusation.  Buckingham  could 
secure  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords.  The  tempta- 
tions which  drew  Buckingham  into  this  odious  and 
criminal  course  were  very  great.  Sir  John  Bennett 
offered  for  the  Seals  no  less  a  sum  than  thirty  thousand 
pounds. 

3.  This  scheme  of  a  criminal  information  quickened 
into  life  on  Egerton's  refusal  to  pass  under  the  Seal  some 
patents  in  which  the  Villiers  family  had  a  share.  Famous 
among  these  was  a  grant  to  Sir  Giles  Mompesson  for  the 
manufacture  of  gold  and  silver  thread.  Everybody  wore 
lace.  In  the  comic  writers  of  James's  reign,  in  Jonson, 
in  Webster,  in  Massinger,  the  young  gallants  strut  in 
lace,  —  not  hi  the  tawdry  stuff  sold  by  Autolycus  as 
a  present  from  country  lads  to  country  lasses,  but  in 

3.  Sign  Manuals,  vi.  109;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  530-576. 


PLOT    TO   RUIN  EGERTON.  275 

glinting  silver  and  gold  ;  the  metals  dropping  in  threads    XI.  3. 
from  the  ruff,  or  wrought  into  the  doublet  and  hose,  the 

1  fil  *7 

cloak  and  cap.  Venice  could  not  supply  the  want.  The  July. 
price  of  gold  and  silver  lace  ran  high  ;  and  the  profits  of 
the  trade  all  went  abroad.  A  Licenser  of  Inns,  Sir  Giles 
Mompesson,  a  man  of  energy  and  wealth,  conceived  a 
scheme  for  introducing  this  profitable  manufacture  into 
England.  There  were  serious  difficulties.  Silver  and 
gold  were  scarce  ;  sometimes  not  to  be  bought  except 
on  ruinous  terms.  The  patent  under  which  he  was  to 
work  must  not  alone  protect  his  trade,  but  allow  him  to 
take  up  gold  and  silver  for  his  need,  even  the  coin  of 
the  realm.  By  giving  two  of  Buckingham's  brothers  a 
share,  in  the  business,  Mompesson  hoped  to  secure  pro- 
tection for  his  enterprise. 

4.  Blind  to  the  lights  of  trade,  Egerton  refused  to  seal 
this  grant.  Not  that  he  perceived  and  lamented  the  true 
evil  of  monopolies  ;  every  profession  was  then  a  guild  ; 
and  without  a  monopoly  there  could  be  no  trade.  The 
grocer,  the  perfumer,  the  vintner,  the  tailor,  was  each 
invested  in  a  charter  or  a  patent.  Egerton,  during  his 
long  reign  as  Chancellor,  passed  hundreds  of  patents, 
some  of  them  far  more  mischievous  than  the  one  for 
enabling  the  London  spinners  to  rival  their  Venetian 
brethren  in  the  production  of  gold  and  silver  thread. 
His  repugnance  to  it  sprang  from  the  contempt  of  an 
old  man  for  new  fripperies  of  dress  and  show,  and  from  a 

4.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Mar.  8,  1617,  S.  P.  0. 


276  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XI.  4.    fear  that  Moinpessou  would  ruin  the  Crown  by  withdraw- 
ing the  coinage  from  circulation  into  trade. 
1617. 

July. 

5.  Buckingham  was  furious.     Urged  by  his  own  vexa- 
tion and  by  his  complaining  brothers,  he  swore  to  ruin 
the  old  Chancellor.     Agents  sneaked  about  the  Inns  of 
Court  speaking  evil  of  the  great  lawyer,  now  on  his  bed 
of  death,  provoking  all  who  had  suffered  wrongs,  or  who 
fancied  they  had  suffered  wrongs,  in  his  court,  to  rise  up 
against  the  tyrant.     Men  soon  answered  to  the  call.     A 
blameless  life,  a  sick-bed,  were  no  protection  against  this 
outrage.     One  said  he  had  given  money  into  the  court ; 
another  said  he  had  given  a  ring,  a  cabinet,  a  piece  of 
plate.     In  substance  and  form  these  tales  were  true,  in 
spirit   and   intention  they  were  false.     Charges  enough 
were  gathered :  charges  more  numerous,  said  Sir  Wil- 
liam Lovelace,  than  those  which  had  recently  crushed 
Coke  ;  charges  as  flimsy  and  as  fatal,  I  may  add,  as  those 
which  four  years  later  served  to  overwhelm  Egerton's 
successor.      Buckingham  sent  to   the  sick   man's   room 
the  news  of  this  flagitious  inquisition  and  its  triumphant 
close ;  it  is  greatly  to  be  feared  that  the  blow  broke  the 
old  man's  heart. 

6.  It  needs  no  magician  to  see  that  he  who  nearly  slew 
Egerton  might  just  as  easily  slay  the  successor  of  Egerton. 


5.  Lovelace  to  Carleton,  Mar.  11, 1617,  S.  P.  0. 

6.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Mar.  11, 1617,  S.  P.  0. ;  Gerard  to  Carleton,  Mar. 
20, 1617,  S.  P.  0. 


CALUMNIES   OF   COKE.  277 

Buckingham  is  cheated  of  his  profit ;  for  though  Bacon    XL  6. 
pays  to  Egerton  eight  thousand  pounds  for  the  surrender 

1  f^l  7 

of  his  legal  rights,  not  a  shilling  of  this  money  flows  into  JuJ ' 
the  favorite's  purse.  The  Yilliers  people  are  not  pleased 
with  a  Chancellor  who  refuses  to  push  their  fortunes  and 
feed  their  pride  ;  nor  is  Buckingham  a  man  to  forget 
that,  if  Egerton  had  been  chased  into  the  House  of  Lords, 
as  Coke  had  been  into  the  Star  Chamber,  he  might  have 
put  into  his  own  pocket  from  the  transaction  a  good  many 
thousand  pounds. 

7.  The  loss  is  great.  It  is  Coke's  business  to  show 
Villiers  how  it  may  be  recovered.  Bacon  is  not  robust 
nor  likely  to  live  long.  He  works  too  much,  and  lives 
too  well,  for  vegetable  length  of  days.  Gout  racks  his 
joints  ;  being  the  first  beggar,  as  he  jests,  who  ever  had 
it.  If  he  dies,  well ;  if  not,  he  may  be  ruined.  Coke, 
who  begins  by  collecting  scandals  against  him,  whispers 
to  the  favorite  that  the  new  Chancellor  is  no  true  friend 
to  him ;  that  he  is  not  zealous  for  the  advancement  of 
Sir  Christopher  Villiers  and  Sir  John  Yilliers ;  that  he 
has  been  already  false  to  Somerset,  and  may  end  by 
playing  false  with  his  Lordship.  Buckingham  lies  open 
to  such  hints ;  his  family  more  open  to  the  direct  per- 
suasion of  angels  and  double  angels.  Coke  gets  Lady 
Buckingham  on  his  side.  If  he  could  only  part  with  his 
hoards,  his  day  of  revenge  might  be  near ;  happily  he 

7.  Yelverton  to  Bacon,  Sept.  3, 1617,  Lambeth  MSS.  936;  Carleton  to  Cham- 
berlain, May  24, 1617,  S.  P.  0. 


278  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XI.  7.    cannot  pay  down  his  money  even  to  assuage  the  rancor 
of  his  heart. 

Ifil9 

j^         He  thinks  of  a  plan  by  which  he  may  gain  his  end, 
yet  save  his  pelf. 

8.  A  daughter  has  been  born  to  Coke  of  his  second 
wife.  This  wife  and  he  never  pulled  together,  and  of 
late  their  wrangles  have  been  louder  than  at  first.  Their 
marriage  was  a  scrape,  their  wedded  life  has  been  a 
quarrel  and  a  jest.  She  disdains  to  bear  his  name,  she 
slams  her  door  in  his  face.  She  gives  entertainments 
in  Holborn,  from  which  he  and  his  friends  are  inso- 
lently shut  out.  Their  tastes  are  in  the  strongest  degree 
opposed. 

He  is  penurious,  she  profuse.  He  loves  folios  and 
a  farthing  candle  ;  she  lights  and  revels,  masques  and 
plays.  By  day  and  night  a  rout  of  fiddlers,  dancers, 
wizards,  lovers,  and  magicians  pours  through  the  gal- 
leries of  her  great  mansion  looking  on  the  Fleet.  Coke 
slinks  in  shame  from  the  sight  of  all  this  devilry  to  his 
den  in  Sergeants'  Inn.  Their  misery  makes  the  sport 
of  wits  and  gallants ;  while  in  their  quarrels  and  their 
unhappiness  Bacon  (though  he  has  not  himself  escaped 
the  common  lot,  —  a  mother-in-law)  has  nevertheless,  in 
his  own  modest  and  tranquil  home,  good  reason  to 
thank  heaven  night  and  day  for  his  escape  from  such 
a  wife. 

8.  Jonson's  Metamorphosed  Gypsies:  Bankes's  Story  of  Corffe  Castle,  35  -  44 ; 
Lady  Hatton  to  Cecil,  undated  Papers,  xl.  6,  S.  P.  0. 


FRANCES   COKE.  279 

9.  The  child  of  this  dismal  pair  is  blossoming  into    XI.  9. 

a  beauty  and  a  toast,  whose  sensuous  loveliness  Jonson 

1617. 
depicts  in  some  of  his  most  luscious  lines  :  —  July 

"  Though  your  either  cheek  discloses 

Mingled  baths  of  milk  and  roses ; 
Though  your  lips  be  banks  of  blisses, 

Where  he  plants  and  gathers  kisses ; 
And  yourself  the  reason  why 

Wisest  men  of  love  may  die  ! " 

Yet  the  beauty  of  her  cheek  and  lips  is  the  smallest 
part  of  Frances  Coke's  charms.  As  Lady  Hatton's  only 
child,  she  is  heiress  of  Hatton  House,  of  Corffe  Castle, 
of  Purbeck  Isle.  Coke  privately  offers  this  wealthy  girl 
to  Buckingham's  mother  for  one  of  her  pauper  sons. 
A  bargain  is  soon  struck.  Sir  John  Villiers  is  to  take 
her  with  twenty  thousand  pounds  dower  and  a  settlement 
of  two  thousand  marks  a  year.  Buckingham  is  to  par- 
don all  Coke's  offences,  and  use  his  power  to  restore 
him  to  high  place  and  confer  on  him  high  rank. 

To  this  huckstering  Frances  Coke  is  much  averse, 
her  mother  still  more  averse.  The  young  lady  hates 
Sir  John,  a  man  old  enough  to  be  her  father,  without 
person  or  talents,  and  poor  as  a  church  mouse.  Her 
mother  huffs  at  a  contract  made  at  her  expense,  with- 
out her  leave.  That  Coke  should  propose  a  scheme  is 

9.  Jonson's  Gypsies  Metamorphosed;  Sherborne  to  Carleton,  Dec.  7,  1616,  S. 
P.  0.;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Dec.  21,  1616;  June  4,  July  19,  1617,  S.  P.  0  ; 
Winwood  to  Lake,  May  27,  1617,  S.  P.  0. 


280  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XI.  9.  enough  to  make  her  loathe  it.  But  in  such  a  scheme 
as  this  match  with  Sir  John  Yilliers  she  has  better 

Ifi17 

^  grounds  for  hesitation  than  a  woman's  whim.  She 
very  justly  fears  the  tenure  of  a  favorite's  place.  Has 
she  not  witnessed  Somerset's  golden  rise  and  stormy 
end  ?  A  twinge  of  gout,  a  saucy  word,  a  prettier  cheek, 
may  turn  the  King's  eye  another  way.  What  then  ? 
"With  Buckingham's  fall  may  come  down  all  his  house. 
Even  now  sharp  eyes  are  turned  on  the  rising  star  of 
Lord  Mordaunt.  Some  note  how  James  of  late  has 
begun  to  ogle  a  youth  named  Coney.  Bets  are  made 
that  Buckingham's  fortunes  are  on  the  wane.  Lady 
Hatton  will  not  hear  of  such  a  match  for  her  only 
child.  Husband  and  wife  dispute  and  quarrel,  as  they 
have  always  done  over  lesser  things ;  and  when  the 
Lord  Keeper  and  the  Council,  anxious  for  peace,  inter- 
pose between'  them,  it  is  only,  as  results  soon  prove, 
to  procure  a  reconciliation  in  which  Coke  tries  to  de- 
ceive Lady  Hatton  and  Lady  Hatton  succeeds  in  deceiv- 
ing Coke.  Each  plots  to  outwit  the  other  ;  Coke  bent 
on  winning  the  good-will  of  Buckingham  ;  his  wife  on 
disposing  of  her  daughter  and  her  property  as  she  her- 
self thinks  best.  Each  plays  the  spy,  makes  friends 
among  the  servants,  gets  up  factions  in  the  house.  Her 
people  take  Lady  Hatton's  part,  more  because  they  scorn 
the  penurious  old  curmudgeon  than  because  they  like 
his  prodigal  and  imperious  wife. 

She  steals  a  march,  upon  him  while  he  sleeps.     Put- 
ting her  child  into  a  coach  at  dead  of  night,  she  slips 


FRANCES  COKE.  281 

away  to  Oatlands,  where  she  hides  from  pursuit  in  her    XI.  9. 

cousin  Sir  Edward  Withipole's  house. 

1617. 
July 

10.  These   domestic    broils    occur   while    James   and 
Buckingham  are  in   the  north,  —  setting  up  organs  in 
churches,  wrangling  over   Kirk  discipline,  consecrating 
bishops   in  the  land  of  Knox.      The   Lord  Keeper  is 
acting  as  a  sort  of  regent.     To  him,  therefore,  in  Coun- 
cil, Coke,  when  he  has  traced  his  wife  and  child,  ap- 
plies for  warrants  of  arrest.     Bacon  refuses.     Coke  flies 
to   Sir  John's   mother ;  his   wicked   wife,  he   tells   this 
lady,  has  stolen  his  child,  has   poisoned   her  affections 
towards  Sir  John,  and  means  to  carry  her  into  France 
to  avoid  the  match  with  her  ladyship's  son. 

Her  cupidity  aroused,  the  great  lady  writes  to  com- 
mand the  Lord  Keeper  to  arm  Coke  with  full  powers 
of  search  and  arrest.  Bacon  again  refuses.  What  he 
feels  it  right  to  deny  in  one  quarter,  he  has  courage 
to  deny  in  another  ;  though  aware  that  his  duty  may 
be  represented  as  an  insult  to  Villiers,  as  an  usurpation 
to  the  King. 

His  refusal  to  do  wrong  at  her  bidding  transforms 
Lady  Buckingham  into  a  ruthless  and  inexorable  foe. 

11.  Safe  in  the  strength  of  his  great  patroness,  Coke, 
defying  the  Lord  Keeper  and  the  Privy  Council,  arms 

10.  Council  Reg.,  July  11,  14, 1617 ;  James  to  Bacon,  July  25,  1617,  in  Birch, 
133. 

11.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  July  19,  1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Gerard  to  Carleton, 
July  22,  1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Council  Reg.,  July  14,  1617. 


282  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XI.  11.  a  dozen  of  his  servants,  rides  down  to  Oatlands,  runs 
a  beam  against  Withipole's  door,  and,  smashing  into  his 

1  fil  7 

.iuiy.  wife's  retreat,  without  warrant  of  arrest,  without  a  con- 
stable, he  seizes  the  fainting  girl,  tosses  her  into  his 
coach,  and  hurries  her  away  to  Stoke. 

A  universal  howl  pursues  the  perpetrator  of  this  out- 
rage on  the  public  peace.  The  Council  meet  to  con- 
sider this  violation  of  domicile.  As  they  are  rising  for 
the  day,  Lady  Hatton  raves  to  the  door.  How  can  they 
they  decline  to  see  her  ?  She  is  a  woman  and  in  dis- 
tress ;  she  is  of  kin  by  blood  or  marriage  to  the  Lord 
Keeper,  to  the  Lord  Treasurer,  to  half  the  Council ; 
she  is  pleading  in  her  right.  When  admitted  to  the 
Council  chamber,  she  describes  with  consummate  art  the 
outrage  she  has  suffered,  the  confinement  of  her  daugh- 
ter in  a  lonely  house,  her  sickness  to  the  point  of  death, 
and  she  implores  the  lords,  as  only  mothers  robbed  of 
their  children  can  implore,  that  the  child  may  be  sent 
for,  that  her  story  may  be  heard,  that  a  physician  may 
see  her  lest  she  die. 

The  Council  grant  her  prayer.  An  officer  of  the  court' 
rides  down  to  Stoke,  takes  the  girl  from  her  imprison- 
ment, and  lodges  her  in  town. 

July  21.  12.  The  Lord  Keeper  summons  Coke  to  attend  the 
Council  and  answer  for  this  breach  of  the  King's  peace. 
With  an  insolence  which  his  secret  understanding  with 

12.  Council  Reg,  July  21,  1617;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  June  4,  1617, 
S.  P.  0.;  Yelverton  to  Bacon,  Sept.  3, 1617,  Lambeth  MSS.  936. 


COKE'S   SUBMISSION.  283 

the  favorite's  kin  makes  safe  for  him,  Coke  declares  that  XI.  12. 
he  has  done  his  duty,  that  his  wife  meant  to  break  the 

Ifi17 

match  with  Sir  John  Villiers,  that  she  would  have  car-  July  Z1 
ried  his  daughter  away  to  France,  that  she  herself  tra- 
duced and  set  on  her  servants  to  traduce  Sir  John. 
Bacon,  who  may  object  to  a  marriage  between  Frances 
Coke  and  Sir  John  Villiers,  —  a  marriage  projected  for 
his  own  humiliation  and  for  the  recovery  of  power  by 
the  late  Chief  Justice,  —  feels,  as  one  of  the  Commis- 
sioners governing  the  realm,  the  gravest  objection  to 
such  acts  as  those  of  Coke.  He  replies,  therefore,  in 
the  name  of  the  Council,  that  Yilliers,  as  a  gentleman 
worthy  of  the  young  lady,  would  have  sought  her  in 
a  noble  and  religious  fashion,  not  with  a  gang  of  armed 
men,  in  a  midnight  brawl,  in  contempt  of  natural  and 
statute  law. 

Yelverton,  the  Attorney-General,  declares  that  the  late 
Lord  Chief  Justice,  in  violating  Withipole's  house  with- 
out warrant  or  constable,  has  grievously  offended  against 
the  law.  None  of  the  Council,  certainly  not  the  Lord 
Keeper,  has  any  wish  to  weigh  upon  the  irascible  old 
man  ;  but  when  he  fails  to  justify  by  witnesses  any  one 
allegation  against  his  wife,  they  are  compelled  to  file  an 
information  against  him  in  the  Star  Chamber  for  breach 
of  the  peace,  and  allow  his  daughter  the  shelter  of  the 
Attorney-General's  house. 

Coke  shudders  at  this  order  for  his  appearance  in  the 
Star  Chamber.  Recently  fined  four  thousand  pounds 
in  that  court  for  taking  bail  of  a  pirate,  he  fears  lest  a 


284  FRANCIS   BACON. 


XL  12.  second   accusation   should  end  in  a   second   fine.      He 
cannot  count  on  either  gratitude  or  wisdom  in  the  Vil- 

July  21. 


1  f--t  iy 

liers   people.      These   thriftless   adventurers  may  think 


it  safer  to  take  his  money  than  wait  for  the  chance  of 
obtaining  his  wife's  broad  lands.  He  finds  it  wiser  to 
defer  to  the  Privy  Council.  With  a  rancorous  ani- 
mosity in  his  heart  towards  Bacon,  and  with  fiery  rage 
against  Yelverton,  he  bends  so  far  as  to  undergo  a 
pretended  reconciliation  with  his  wife.  Bacon  joyfully 
announces  to  the  King  that  peace  is  made. 

Juij25.  13.  A  line  of  writers  closing  in  Lord  Campbell  rep- 
resents Bacon  as  first  selfishly  striving  to  thwart  the 
match ;  then,  finding  Buckingham  bent  on  it,  as  plot- 
ting with  Lady  Hatton  by  underground  and  criminal 
practices  to  defeat  it ;  next,  after  bearing  with  abject 
spirit  the  most  provoking  taunts  and  threats  from  the 
favorite,  as  meanly  condescending  to  eat  his  words  and 
to  forward  a  match  which  he  must  have  detested  with 
all  his  soul.  The  dates  supplied  by  the  Council  Register 
correct  these  errors.  Bacon's  first  note  to  Buckingham 
on  the  match  has  the  date  of  July  twelfth,  his  first  note 
to  the  King  that  of  July  twenty-fifth.  Before  the  earlier 
date,  Lady  Hatton  and  her  daughter  ran  away,  the  ex- 
Chief  Justice  broke  into  Withipole's  house,  the  Council 
met  to  consider  his  offence,  and  Clement  Edmondes, 
their  clerk,  took  charge  of  the  girl.  Before  the  later 
date,  and  before  a  single  word  was  heard  from  Buck- 
is.  Bacon  to  Buckingham,  July  12,  25,  1617;  Bacon  to  James,  July  25,  1617. 


BUCKINGHAM'S   INTERFERENCE.  285 

ingham  in   answer,   Bacon   calmed  the  outrage,   recon-  XI.  13. 

ciled  husband  and  wife,  and  restored  Frances  Coke  to 

her  father's  house.  Jul  ^ 

14.  After  all  this  was  done,  he  wrote  to  Buckingham 
and  the  King  the  reasons  which,  in  his  opinion,  made 
a   marriage   between   John   Villiers   and  Frances  Coke 
undesirable  ;  the  refusal  of  Lady  Hatton,  the   depend- 
ency of  the  young  girl  on  her  mother,  the  quarrelsome 
temper  of  the  two   parents,  the   notoriety  and   scandal 
of  their  domestic  feuds,  the  disapproval  of  leading  men 
in  the  Government,   the   recent  disgrace  of  Coke,  the 
divisions  which  his  return  to  the  Council  would  bring 
with  it,  —  sage  and  honest  reasons,  one  and  all,  which 
received  the  most  prompt  and  signal  justification  from 
events.      But  Buckingham  was  blind.      The  King  him- 
self forbade  Bacon  to  oppose  the  favorite's  schemes  of 
family  aggrandizement.     Unable  either  to  resist  his  Ma- 
jesty's commands,  or  to  close  his  eyes  on  the  coming 
evil,  he  accepted  the  duty  laid  upon   him :    "  For  my 
Lord  of  Buckingham,  I  had  rather  go  against  his  mind 
than  against  his  good.     Your  Majesty  I  must  obey." 

15.  Lady  Hatton,  on  publishing  a  prior  contract  be-     oct 


14.  Vere  to  Carleton,  Aug.  12,  1617,  S.  P.  0. ;  Gerard  to  Carleton,  Aug.  18, 
1617,  S.  P.  0. 

16.  Council  Reg.,  Sept  24, 1617 ;  Obligations  and  Oaths  of  Frances  Coke  to 
become  the  Wife  of  Henry  Vere,  July  10,  1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Gerard  to  Carleton, 
Aug.  18, 1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Herbert  to  Carleton,  Oct.  6,  1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Vere  to 
Carleton,  Oct.  20, 1617,  S.  P.  0. 


286  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XI.  15.  tween  her  daughter  and  the  young  Lord  Oxford,  is  put 
into  arrest,  and  the  marriage  of  Sir  John  and  Frances 
Octi  celebrated  with  regal  pomp.  It  begins  in  misery  to  end 
in  shame.  Lady  Hatton  resists  every  persuasion  to 
appear,  nor  is  there  a  single  Cecil  present  at  the  rite. 
James  makes  the  bridegroom  Viscount  Purbeck ;  but 
he  cannot  make  the  young  bride  love  or  respect  a  man 
to  whom  she  has  been  sold.  Coke  is  content.  To  the 
chagrin  of  the  Lord  Keeper,  to  the  terror  of  Yelverton, 
he  returns  to  the  Privy  Council,  —  a  lawyer  out  of  work, 
—  the  situation  in  which  his  enmity  can  oftenest  wound 
and  his  activity  oftenest  thwart  the  detested  rival  who 
holds  the  Seals.  Expecting  a  coronet,  Coke  chooses  for 
himself  the  title  of  Lord  Stoke.  He  believes,  as  the 
world  believes,  that  his  rise  will  be  the  signal  for  Ba- 
con's fall ;  yet  such  are  the  suavity  and  zeal,  the  splen- 
dor and  success  of  the  new  Lord  Keeper,  — such  his 
popularity  on  the  bench  and  at  "Whitehall,  —  that,  in 
spite  of  new  scandals  brought  upon  him  and  his  family 
by  Sir  John  and  Lady  Pakington,  he  is  able  to  defy  the 
malice  of  his  enemies  and  to  soar  above  every  storm. 

16.  When  her  daughter's  husband  received  the  Great 
Seal,  Lady  Pakington  supposed  that  her  day  of  deliverance 
from  Sir  John  was  at  hand.  The  lusty  knight,  who  has 
sunk  her  rents  in  his  brine-pits  and  fish-ponds,  has  now 
grown  old,  verging  on  seventy  years  of  age,  while  she  is 
still  young  and  hale.  But  time,  which  slackens  his  thews, 

16.  Dom.  Papers  James  the  First,  xcii.  88. 


QUARRELS   OF   THE  PAKENGTONS.  287 

has  left  untamed  his  temper  and  his  pride.     The  mother  XI.  16. 

of  a  Lord  Keeper's  wife  can  surely  get  justice  done  to  her 

1617 
at  last  against  the  tyrant !     She  appeals  to  the  law,  and     Oci  ' 

brings  him  before  the  Court  of  High  Commission,  where 
her  cold,  easy  manner  tells  in  her  behalf,  and  his  fluster 
and  violence  get  him  sent  to  jail  and  put  under  lock  and 
guard.  To  Bacon's  deep  mortification,  and  despite  his 
strenuous  efforts  to  avoid  the  case,  this  domestic  broil  is 
referred  to  him. 

Under  trials  of  excessive  difficulty  and  delicacy,  he  bears 
himself  between  husband  and  wife,  in  this  miserable  stage, 
in  a  way  to  extort  the  praise  of  even  those  news-writers 
and  gossips  who  are  in  other  matters  the  harshest  critics 
of  his  life.  He  tells  Lady  Pakington  she  is  in  the  wrong, 
and  that  she  ought  to  yield.  He  warns  her  against  the 
hope  of  finding  in  him  a  lenient  judge  so  long  as  she  fol- 
lows her  cold,  unbending  course. 

This  is  the  testimony  of  an  unfriendly  hand  :  — 

CHAMBERLAIN  TO  CARLETON. 

July  6,  1617. 

There  be  great  wars  betwixt  Sir  John  and  his  lady, 
who  sues  him  in  the  High  Commission  ;  where,  by  his 
own  wilfulness,  she  hath  some  advantage  of  him  and 
keeps  him  in  prison.  But  the  Lord  Keeper  deals  very 
honorably  in  the  matter,  which,  though  he  could  not  com- 
pound being  referred  to  him,  yet  he  carries  himself  so 
indifferently  that  he  wishes  her  to  yield,  and  tells  her 


288  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XI.  16.  plainly  and  publicly  that  she  must  look  for  no  counte- 
nance from  him  as  long  as  she  follows  this  course, 
iftis. 

Jan-  17.  Notwithstanding  these  scandals  and  vexations  in 
his  own  family,  the  Lord  Keeper  rises  in  power,  expands 
in  fame.  In  January,  1618,  he  attains  the  higher  grade 
of  Chancellor.  In  July  of  the  same  year  he  becomes  a 
Peer.  His  slanderers  sink  beneath  his  feet.  No  severity 
seems  to  the  Privy  Council  too  great  for  those,  however 
high  in  rank,  who  menace  his  person  or  dispute  his  jus- 
tice. For  a  saucy  word  they  send  Lord  Clifton  to  the 
Fleet :  for  a  complaint  against  one  of  his  verdicts  they 
commit  Lady  Ann  Blount  to  the  Marshalsea.  In  1620 
he  publishes  his  Novuna  Organum,  —  a  book  which  has  in 
it  the  germs  of  more  power  and  good  to  man  than  any 
other  work  not  of  Divine  authorship  in  the  world.  He 
is  now  at  the  height  of  earthly  fame.  First  layman  in  his 
own  country,  first  philosopher  in  Europe,  what  is  wanting 
to  liis  felicity  ?  Neither  power,  nor  popularity,  nor  titles, 
nor  love,  nor  fame,  nor  obedience,  nor  troops  of  friends. 

1620.  All  these  he  has,  —  no  man  in  greater  fulness.     If  his 
heart  has  other  longings,  he  has  only  to  express  his  wish. 

1621.  In  January,  1621,  he  receives  the  title  of  Viscount  St. 
Albans,  in  a  form  of  peculiar  honor,  —  other  Peers  being 
created  by  letters-patent,  he  by  investiture  with  the  cor- 
onet and  robe. 


17.  Council  Reg.,  Dec.  30,  1617,  Mar.  17,  27,  1618;  Grant  Book,  241,283; 
Herbert  to  Carleton,  Dec.  30,  1617,  S.  P.  0. ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Feb.  3, 
1621,  S.  P.  0. 


SUDDENNESS   OF  HIS  FALL.  •         289 

18.  Yet,  only  seven  months  after  printing  the  Greatest  XI.  18. 
Birth  of  Time,  only  three  months  after  receiving  in  the 
King's  presence  the  robe  and  coronet,  he  is  stripped  of    Jan  .,. 
his  honors,  degraded  from  his  great  place,  condemned  to 
a  monstrous  fine,  and  flung  into  the  Tower. 

The  tale  of  this  fall  is  the  most  strange  and  sad  in  the 
whole  history  of  man. 

18.  Lords'  Jour.,  iii.  105. 


13 


290  FRANCIS  BACON, 


CHAPTER    XII. 

FEES. 

• 

XII.  l.       1.  To  see  why  the  threat  of  prosecution  so  deeply  dis- 
turbed Egerton,  and  how  easy  it  may  be  for  unscrupulous 
Noy '    men  to  frame  a  charge  of  corruption  against  his  success- 
or, a  reader  who  is  not  a  lawyer  should  remind  himself 
of  the  state  of  society  in  the  days  of  James  the  First. 

There  is  no  civil  list.  Few  men  in  the  court  or  in  the 
Church  receive  salaries  from  the  Crown ;  and  each  has  to 
keep  his  state  and  make  his  fortune  out  of  fees  and  gifts. 
The  King  takes  fees.  The  archbishop,  the  bishop,  the 
rural  dean  take  fees.  The  Lord  Chancellor,  the  Lord 
Chief  Justice,  the  Baron  of  the  Exchequer,  the  Master  of 
the  Rolls,  the  Attorney-General^  the  Solicitor-General, 
the  King's  Sergeant,  the  utter  barrister,  all  the  function- 
aries of  law  and  justice,  take  fees.  So  in  the  great  offices 
of  state.  The  Lord  Treasurer  takes  fees.  The  Lord  Ad- 
miral takes  fees.  The  Secretary  of  State,  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  the  Master  of  the  Wards,  the  Warden 
of  the  Cinque  Ports,  the  gentlemen  of  the  Bedchamber, 
all  take  fees.  Everybody  takes  fees,  everybody  pays  fees. 

2.   In  some  public  offices  and  courts  the  amount  to 


UNIVERSALITY   OF   FEES.  291 

be  paid  is  fixed,  either  by  ancient  usage  or  by  such  a  XII.  2 
common  understanding  as  in  modern  times  controls  a 
railway  or  steamboat  fare.  In  some,  particularly  in  the  Nov 
courts  of  justice,  it  is  open.  Bassanio  may  present  his 
ducats  ;  three  thousand  in  a  bag.  The  judge  may  only 
take  a  ring.  A  fee  is  due  whenever  an  act  is  done.  The 
occasions  on  which,  by  ancient  usage  of  the  realm,  the 
King  claims  help  or  fine  are  many :  the  sealing  of  an 
office  or  a  grant,  the  knighting  of  his  son,  the  marriage 
of  his  daughter,  the  alienation  of  lands  in  capite,  his 
birthday,  New  Year's  Day,  the  anniversary  of  his  acces- 
sion or  his  coronation,  —  indeed,  at  all  times  when  ho 
wants  money  and  finds  men  rich  enough  and  loyal  enough 
to  pay.  In  like  manner  the  clergy  levy  tithe  and  toll ; 
fees  on  christenings,  fees  on  churchings,  fees  on  mar- 
riages, fees  on  interments ;  Easter  offerings,  free  offer- 
ings ;  charities,  church  reparations,  church  extensions, 
pews,  and  rents. 

In  the  government  offices  it  is  the  same  as  in  the 
palace  and  the  church.  If  the  Attorney-General,  the 
Secretary  of  State,  the  Lord-Admiral,  or  the  Privy  Seal 
puts  liis  signature  to  a  sheet  of  paper,  he  takes  his  fee. 
Often  it  is  his  means  of  life.  To  wit,  the  retaining  fee 
paid  by  the  King  to  Cecil,  as  premier  Secretary  of  State, 
is  a  hundred  pounds  a  year.  But  the  fees  from  other 
sources  are  enormous.  These  fees  are  not  bribes. 

3.  The  same  at  the  Bar  and  on  the  Bench.  The  Bar 
is  a  free  profession.  —  a  member  of  the  Temple  or  of  Lin- 


292  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XII.  3.  coin's  Inn  being  bound  to  plead,  as  the  knights  whose 

swords  are  rust  were  bound  to  fight,  in  love  and  faith, 
1620.  . 

Nov      taking  no  purse  nor  scrip.     It  is  an  order  01  courtesy  and 

chivalry ;  its  members  the  soldiers  of  justice,  pledged  to 
protect  the  weak,  to  help  the  needy,  to  defend  the  right. 
Now,  all  this  service  is  by  law  and  usage  free.  A  bar- 
rister may  not  ask  wages  for  his  toil,  like  an  attorney  or 
a  clerk,  nor  can  he  reclaim  by  any  process  of  law,  as  the 
clerk  and  the  attorney  can,  the  value  of  his  time  and 
speech.  If  he  lives  on  the  gifts  of  grateful  clients,  these 
gifts  must  be  perfectly  free.  This  theory  of  a  counsel's 
hire,  though  old  as  our  language  and  our  institutions,  is 
of  course  a  sham.  No  junior  on  the  Oxford  circuit 
dreams  of  succoring  damsels  from  love  of  Dulcinea,  or 
freeing  galley-slaves  from  the  obligations  of  knighthood. 
No  guineas,  no  speech.  The  shifts  by  which  lax  attor- 
neys are  tickled  into  passing  the  fees  which  no  law  com- 
pels them  to  pay  are  droll  as  anything  in  the  immortal 
laws  of  Barataria. 

4.  Now,  the  rules  which  continue  under  Victoria  to 
govern  the  Bar,  under  James  the  First  governed  the 
Bench.  The  Lord  Chief  Justice  or  the  Lord  Chancellor, 
like  the  Secretary  of  State,  is  paid  by  fees.  The  King's 
judge  is  neither  in  deed  nor  in  name  a  public  servant; 
he  receives  a  nominal  sum  as  standing  counsel  for  the 
Crown  ;  and  for  the  rest  he  depends  on  the  income  aris- 
ing from  his  hearing  of  private  causes.  These  facts 
appear  in  a  comparison  of  the  amounts  paid  by  the 


FEES   AT   THE   BAR.  293 

Crown  to  its  great  legal  functionaries,  with  the  estimated  XII.  4. 
profits  of  each  particular  post.  Thus  the  Seals,  though 
the  Lord  Chancellor  had  no  proper  salary,  were  in  Eger-  Noy 
ton's  time  worth  from  ten  to  fifteen  thousand  pounds  a 
year.  Bacon  valued  his  place  as  Attorney-General  at  six 
thousand  a  year  ;  of  which  princely  sum  (twenty-five 
thousand  a  year  in  coin  of  Victoria)  the  King  only  paid 
him  eighty-one  pounds  six  shillings  and  eight  pence. 
Yelverton's  place  of  Solicitor  brought  him  three  or  four 
thousand  a  year,  of  which  he  got  seventy  pounds  from 
James.  The  judges-  had  enough  to  buy  their  gloves  and 
robes,  not  more.  Coke,  when  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Eng- 
land, drew  from  the  State  twelve  farthings  less  than  two 
hundred  and  twenty-five  pounds  a  year.  When  travel- 
ling circuit,  he  was  allowed  thirty-three  pounds  six  shil- 
lings and  eight  pence  for  his  expenses.  Hobart,  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas,  had  twelve  farthings  less 
than  one  hundred  and  ninety-five  pounds  a  year ;  Tan- 
field,  Lord  Chief  Baron  of  His  Majesty's  Court  of  Ex- 
chequer, one  hundred  and  eighty-eight  pounds  six  shil- 
lings a  year.  Yet  each  of  these  great  lawyers  had  given 
up  a  lucrative  practice  at  the  Bar.  After  their  pro- 
motion to  the  Bench,  they  lived  in  good  houses,  kept  a 
princely  state,  gave  dinners  and  masques,  made  pres- 
ents to  the  King,  accumulated  goods  and  lands.  Their 
wages  were  paid  in  fees  by  those  who  resorted  for  justice 
to  their  courts. 

5.     These  fees  were  not  bribes. '   If  the  satirists,  from 

5.  Dom.  Papers  James  First,  i.  68,  S.  P.  0. 


294  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XII.  5.  Latimer  to  Nashe,  described  the  Bench  of  Bishops  and 
the  Bench  of  Judges  as  taking  bribes,  it  was  only  in 
NOT  the  vein  common  to  lampooners  in  every  age  of  the 
world ;  the  vein  in  which  Boccaccio  describes  his  Friars, 
and  Jonson  his  Justice  Overdos.  Serious  men  made  no 
complaint.  Judicial  corruption  was  not  a  grievance  in 
1604.  In  1606  an  attempt  to  reduce  the  fees  in  one 
department  of  Chancery  business  was  rejected  by  the 
popular  party  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

In  the  Great  List  of  Grievances,  drawn  up  in  1604, 
we  find  complaints  that  Cecil  lives  in  adultery,  that 
Parliament  is  packed  with  courtiers,  that  the  Forest 
Laws  have  been  revived,  that  pardons  are  sold  to  cut- 
throats and  felons,  that  monopolies  are  granted  to  duns, 
and  patents  bestowed  on  extortioners  and  pimps  ;  not 
that  the  great  lawyers  are  thought  corrupt,  or  that  jus- 
tice is  supposed  to  be  bought  and  sold. 

Nor  is  such  a  grievance  felt  though  undescribed.  In 
the  List  .of  Grievances  there  is  one  charge  against  the 
Lord  Chancellor  Egerton.  Had  there  been  a  second,  it 
would  certainly  have  been  named.  In  1604  the  charge 
which  law  reformers  made  against  Egerton  was  that  he 
held  the  two  offices  of  Master  of  the  Rolls  and  Keeper 
of  the  Great  Seals.  It  never  occurred  to  these  men  to 
complain  that  he  took  his  wages  in  the  shape  of  fees. 

6.  In  1606  a  bill  was  laid  before  the  Commons,  by 
a  disappointed  jobber,  to  reduce  some  of  the  fees  for 

6.  Tanner  MSS.  169,  fol.  42;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  259,  268,  279. 


SPEECH   ON  FEES  FOR   COPIES.  295 

copies  in  the  Court  of  Record.  In  the  debates  on  this  XII.  (>'. 
bill  Bacon  assumed  a  leading  part.  The  argument  of 
counsel  was  against  the  interference  of  Parliament  in  Nov 
the  unfair  fashion  of  the  bill,  with  what  Bacon  called 
the  freeholds  of  the  officers  in  that  Court.  The  notes 
of  his  speech,  which  are  in  the  Bodleian  Library,  and 
have  not  been  printed,  put  the  case  as  it  appeared  to 
the  best  minds  in  England  in  1606,  a  year  before  he 
held  any  office  under  the  Crown.  Bacon  showed  that 
the  bill  to  reduce  the  fees  for  copies  originated  in  a 
spirit,  not  of  reform,  but  of  revenge ;  that  a  similar 
bill  had,  in  years  gone  by,  been  promptly  rejected  by 
the  House  ;  that  such  a  law  to  cut  down  fees  was  un- 
precedented ;  that  the  bill  was  retroactive,  against  all 
law  and  justice  ;  that  a  man's  right  in  his  fees  was  sa- 
cred as  his  right  in  his  goods  and  lands.  Remembering 
all  that  is  to  follow,  with  how  much  curiosity  one  reads 
these  nineteen  heads  of  a  discourse  against  the  bill ! 

Sm  FRANCIS  BACON'S  SPEECH. 

First :  It  hath  sprung  out  of  the  ashes  of  a  decayed 
monopoly  by  the  spleen  of  one  man  ;  that,  because  he 
could  not  continue  his  new  exactions,  therefore  would 
now  pull  down  ancient  fees. 

Second :  It  knows  the  way  out  of  the  House ;  for  in 
the  xxxv  Eliz.  the  like  bill  was  preferred,  and  much 
called  upon  at  the  first,  and  rejected  at  the  engross- 
ment, not  having  twenty  voices  for  it. 


296  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XII.  6.       Third  :  It  is  without  all  precedent ;  for  look  into  for- 
mer laws  and  you  shall  find  that,  when  a  statute  en- 

1G20. 

Nov  acts  a  new  office  or  acts  to  be  done,  it  limits  fees,  as  m 
case  of  enrolment,  in  case  of  administration,  <fcc.,  but 
it  never  limits  ancient  fees  to  take  away  other  men's 
freeholds. 

Fourth  :  It  looks  extremely  back,  which  is  against 
all  justice  of  Parliament,  for  a  number  of  subjects  are 
already  placed  in  offices :  some  attaining  them  in  course 
of  long  service  ;  some  in  consideration  of  great  sums 
of  money ;  some  in  reward  of  service  from  the  Crown, 
when  they  might  have  had  other  suits  and  such  offices 
again  allied  with  a  number  of  other  subjects,  who  valued 
them  according  to  their  offices.  Now,  if  half  these 
men's  livelihoods  and  fortunes  should  be  taken  from 
them,  it  were  an  infinite  injustice. 

Fifth :  It  were  more  justice  to  raise  the  fees  than  to 
abate  them,  for  we  see  gentlemen  have  raised  their  rents 
and  the  fines  of  their  tenants,  and  merchants,  trades- 
men, and  farmers  their  commodities  and  wares  ;  and 
this  mightily  within  c.  years.  But  the  fees  of  offices 
continue  at  one  rate. 

Sixth :  If  it  be  said  the  number  of  fees  is  much  in- 
creased because  causes  are  increased,  that  is  a  benefit 
which  time  gives  and  time  takes  away.  It  is  no  more 
than  if  there  were  an  ancient  toll  at  some  bridge  be- 
tween Berwick  and  London,  and  now  it  should  be 
brought  down  because  that,  Scotland  being  united, 
there  were  more  passengers. 


SPEECH   ON   FEES   FOR   COPIES.  297 

Seventh  :  Causes  may  again  decrease,  as  they  do  al-  XII.  6. 
ready  begin ;  and  therefore,  as  men  must  endure  the  preju- 
dice of  time,  so  they  ought  again  to  enjoy  benefit  of  time.     NoT 

Eighth :  Men  are  not  to  consider  the  proportion  be- 
tween the  fee  and  the  pains  taken,  as  if  it  were  in  a 
scrivener's  shop,  because  in  the  copies  (being  the  prin- 
cipal gain  of  the  officer)  was  considered  ab  antiquo  his 
charge,  his  attendance,  his  former  labors  to  make  him 
fit  for  the  place,  his  countenance  and  quality  in  the 
commonwealth,  and  the  like. 

Ninth  :  The  officers  do  many  things  sans  fee,  as  in 
causes  in  forma  pauperis,  and  for  the  King,  &c.,  which 
is  considered  in  the  fees  of  copies. 

Tenth :  There  is  great  labor  of  mind  in  many  cases, 
as  in  the  entering  of  orders,  and  in  all  examinations. 
All  which  is  only  considered  in  the  copies. 

Eleventh:  These  offices  are  either  the  gift  of  the 
King  or  in  the  gift  of  great  officers,  who  have  their  of- 
fice from  the  King,  so  as  the  King  is  disinherited  of  his 
ancient  rights  and  means  to  prefer  servants,  and  the  great 
offices  of  the  kingdom  likewise  disgraced  and  impaired. 

Twelfth  :  There  is  a  great  confusion  and  inequality  in 
the  bill,  for  the  copies  in  inferior  courts,  as  for  example 
the  Court  of  the  Marches,  the  Court  of  the  North  (be- 
ing inferior  courts),  are  left  in  as  good  case  as  they  were, 
and  high  courts  of  the  kingdom  only  abridged,  whereas 
there  was  ever  a  diversity  half  in  half  in  all  fees,  as 
Chancellor's  clerks  and  all  others. 

Thirteenth :    If  fees   be   abridged   as   too   great,  they 
13* 


298  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XII.  6.   ought  to  be  abridged  as  well  in  other  points  as  in  copies, 

and  as  well  in  other  offices  as  in  offices  towards  the  law. 

1620. 

Nov-  For  now  prothonotories  shall  have  their  old  fees  for  en- 
grossing upon  the  roll  and  the  like,  and  only  the  copies 
shall  be  abridged  ;  whereas,  if  it  be  well  examined,  the 
copies  are  of  all  fees  the  most  reasonable  ;  and  so  of 
other  offices,  as  customs,  searches,  mayors,  bailiffs,  <fec., 
which  have  many  ancient  fees  incident  to  their  offices, 
which  all  may  be  called  in  question  upon  the  like  or 
better  reason. 

Fourteenth  :  The  suggestion  of  the  bill  is  utterly  false, 
which  in  all  law  is  odious.  For  it  suggesteth  that  these 
fees  have  of  late  years  been  exacted,  which  is  utterly 
untrue,  having  been  time  out  of  mind  and  being  men's 
.  freehold,  whereof  they  may  have  an  assize,  so  as  the 
Parliament  may  as  well  take  any  man's  lands,  common 
means,  <fec.,  as  these  fees. 

Fifteenth  :  It  casts  a  slander  upon  all  superior  judges, 
as  if  they  had  tolerated  extortions,  whereas  there  have 
been  severe  and  strict  courses  taken,  and  that  of  late, 
for  the  distinguishing  of  lawful  fees  from  new  exactions, 
and  fees  reduced  into  tables,  and  they  published  and 
hanged  up  in  courts,  that  the  subjects  be  not  poled  nor 
aggrieved. 

Sixteenth :  The  law  (if  it  were  just)  ought  to  enter 
into  an  examination  and  distinction  what  were  rightful 
and  ancient  fees  and  what  were  upstart  fees  and  en- 
croachments, whereas  now  it  sweeps  them  all  away  with- 
out difference. 


BILL   TO   LIMIT   FEES   REJECTED.  299 

Seventeenth  :  It  requires  an  impossibility,  setting  men  XII.  6. 
to  spell  again  how  many  syllables  be  in  a  line,  and  puts 
the  penalty  of  xxs.  for  every  line  faulty,  which  is  xviii/.      Nov 
a  sheet.     And  the  superior  officers  must  answer  it  for 
clerks'  faults  or  oversight. 

Eighteenth  :  It  doth  disgrace  superior  judges  in  court, 
to  whom  it  properly  belongeth  to  correct  those  misde- 
meanors according  to  their  oaths  and  according  to  dis- 
cretion, because  it  is  impossible  to  reduce  it  to  a  defi- 
nite rule. 

Nineteenth :  This  being  a  penal  law,  it  seems  there 
is  but  some  commodity  sought  for,  that  some  that  could 
not  continue  their  first  monopoly  might  make  themselves 
whole  out  of  some  penalties. 

These  arguments  prevailed.  A  committee  being  named 
to  report  on  the  bill,  they  reported  against  it,  and  the 
bill  was  laid  asleep. 

7.  A  few  years  later,  mainly  through  the  speeches 
and  the  writings  of  Bacon  himself,  a  feeling  began  to 
show  itself  against  the  payment  of  judges,  registrars, 
and  clerks,  by  uncertain  fees.  Each  new  Parliament  saw 
the  subject  stirred.  In  the  sessions  of  1610  and  1614 
bills  were  introduced  and  dropped.  But  the  argument 
for  a  great  and  just  change  of  the  old  system  grew 
under  debate.  The  business  of  the  courts  increases 
daily,  and  the  private  causes  have  long  ago  become 
more  numerous  and  important  than  the  King's  causes. 

7.  Com.  Jour.,  i.  427,  489. 


300  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XII.  7.  A  plan,  therefore,  which  may  have  done  very  well  under 
Edward  or  Henry,  may  be  a  very  great  evil  under  James. 
Nov  An  unpaid  Bench,  though  all  that  society  wished  for 
its  defence  under  feudal  or  Brehon  law,  may  obviously 
become  a  dangerous  power  in  a  highly  artificial  and 
litigious  age.  Such  is  the  reasoning  of  many  wise  men. 
Not  that  justice  is  less  purely  dispensed  under  Bacon 
than  of  yore  ;  the  reverse  is  a  conspicuous  fact.  The 
improvement  has  been  slow  and  safe.  Hatton  danced 
through  his  duties  with  more  credit  than  Bromley ;  Puck- 
ering surpassed  Hatton,  and  Egerton  eclipsed  Puckering. 
The  last  Chancellor  of  all  is  the  best ;  in  character  as 
in  intellect  Bacon  tops  the  list.  A  desire  to  change 
the  fee  system  is  not  the  child  of  discontent,  but 
of  growth.  Under  Edward  or  Richard  the  Commons 
would  have  refused  a  salary  to  the  judge  ;  for  a  mag- 
nificently paid  Bench  would  have  seemed,  and  prob- 
ably would  have  behaved,  as  the  ministers  of  a  des- 
potic prince,  eager  only  for  their  master's  work,  con- 
temptuous of  the  intrusion  of  private  causes,  callous  to 
the  concerns  of  common  men.  The  profits  from  private 
suits  quickened  the  stream  of  justice ;  helped  to  main- 
tain the  independence  of  the  upright  judge.  Yet  many 
men  see  that  a  time  must  come,  some  think  it  has 
come,  when,  through  the  growth  of  riches  and  the  puri- 
fication of  law,  the  system  of  various  and  precarious 
fees  may  be  wisely  abandoned  for  a  system  of  payments 
by  the  State. 

8.  An  old  lawyer  like  Coke  knows  how  to  turn  this 


PLOTTENGS  OF  LADY  BUCKINGHAM.         301 


war  between  an  old  system  and  a  new  sentiment  to  XII.  8. 
account.  Time  has  neither  cured  his  jealousy  of  Bacon 
nor  cooled  his  resentment  towards  Yelverton.  If  the  Noy 
alliance  with  Buckingham  has  not  yet  brought  him  the 
Mace  and  Seals,  nor  even  the  barony  of  Stoke,  it  has 
given  him  the  favorite's  mother  for  a  friend.  Lady 
Buckingham  is  busy  for  her  kin  ;  her  son  John  mar- 
ried and  made  a  peer,  she  wants  an  heiress  for  her 
son  Christopher,  two  or  three  rich  husbands  for  her 
penniless  nieces,  a  suitor,  may  be,  for  herself.  A  wife 
for  Kit  she  may  buy  with  honors,  just  as  she  bought 
Frances  Coke  for  John.  But  husbands  for  her  neices, 
men  of  high  rank  and  wealth,  she  can  only  tempt  into 
the  noose  with  offices  and  power.  She  has  bought  Sir 
Lionel  Cranfield  up  for  one  niece.  For  another  she  • 
has  fixed  her  eye  on  James  Ley,  the  rich  Attorney  of 
the  Court  of  "Wards.  Craufield's  wooing  has  been  comic 
as  a  play.  Falling  in  love  with  Lady  Effingham,  he  pro- 
poses to  her,  and  is  about  to  marry  her,  when  the  news 
reaches  Lady  Buckingham,  who  instantly  warns  her  mis- 
erable dependant  that  if  he  hopes  to  thrive  at  court 
he  must  give  up  Lady  Effingham,  and  marry  a  young 
person,  who  is  certainly  poor  in  purse,  but  rich  enough 
for  two  in  friends.  Craufield  takes  the  wife  offered  to 
him,  with  a  seat  at  the  Privy  Council,  and  a  promise 
of  one  of  the  highest  places  in  the  sovereign's  gift. 

8.  Hanvood  to  Carleton,  Feb.  6,  1619,  S.  P.  0. ;  Brent  to  Carleton,  May  29, 
1619,  S.  P.  0.;  Nethersole  to  Carleton,  Jan.  18,  1620,  S.  P.  0.;  Chamberlain  to 
Carleton,  July  14,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Sign  Man.,  Nos.  44,  53. 


302  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XII.  8.       To  lure  him  on,  James  Ley  is  made  a  baronet,  and 
a  special  act  under  the  Sign  Manual  remits  to  him  the 
Noy      usual  fees  for  the  escutcheon  of  the  bloody  hand. 

These  promotions,  moreover,  are  but  stepping-stones 
to  place.  What  great  offices  can  be  got  ? 

9.  A  beginning  has  been  made  with  the  White  Staff. 

Suffolk  was  unpopular.  The  father  of  Lady  Somer- 
set, an  avowed  Roman  Catholic,  a  suspected  pensioner 
of  Spain,  he  was  hated  while  in  power  with  such  bit- 
terness of  hate,  that  when  Buckingham's  tools  charged 
him  with  extortion,  false  dealing,  bribery,  and  embezzle- 
ment, to  none  of  which  accusations  he  lay  fairly  open, 
no  one  felt  either  surprise  or  pity  at  the  fate  of  this 
pernicious  peer ;  and  when  the  Court  of  Star  Chamber, 
with  the  sham  proofs  of  his  guilt  before  it,  deprived 
him  of  the  Staff,  fined  him  thirty  thousand  pounds, 
and  flung  him  during  pleasure  into  the  Tower,  the 
whole  country,  which  knew  him  to  be  a  Papist  and  be- 
lievqd  him  to  be  a  spy,  felt  the  sentence  which  de- 
prived him  of  power  to  do  harm  run  through  its  veins, 
—  a  shock  of  joy. 

10.  The  profits  of  this  transaction  only  kindle  the  greed 
for  more.  Yelverton's  turn  comes  next. 

If  not  a  Puritan  in  religion,  Sir  Henry  Yelverton  has 


9.  Proceedings  against  the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  Nov.  13,  1619,  S.  P.  0. 

10.  Bacon's  Notes,  Lambeth  MSS.  936,  fol.  133;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton, 
June  28,  1620,  S.  P.  0.;  Archseologia,  xv.  27. 


YELVERTON'S   CASE.  303 

generally  spoken  and  voted  with  the  Puritan  party.  A  XII.  10. 
man  of  good  parts  and  unbending  character,  he  has  lived 
on  friendly  terms  with  Bacon,  with  whom  he  kept  his  NOT 
terms  at  Gray's  Inn  and  served  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. His  popularity  in  the  House,  like  the  popularity 
of  Bacon,  kept  him  out  of  office.  In  the  debates,  for 
many  years  his  name  stood  side  by  side  with  that  of 
Bacon,  with  whom  he  spoke  for  the  subsidies  and  for  the 
Union.  The  same  breeze  of  favor  brought  them  both 
into  power.  When  Bacon  became  Attorney-General  he 
used  his  influence  to  procure  the  Solicitorship  for  Yel- 
verton.  Since  then  they  have  acted  constantly  together, 
most  of  all  so  in  the  effort  to  prevent  Frances  Coke  from 
being  forced  to  marry  a  man  she  could  not  love.  Buck- 
ingham and  the  faction  of  Buckingham  have  never  liked 
Yelverton.  They  have  not  been  able  to  forget  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  rise,  to  forgive  the  obstinacy  of  his 
demeanor,  or  the  way  in  which  he  has  exercised  towards 
them  his  power.  When  Bacon  got  the  Seals,  Sir  James 
Ley,  who  wanted  to  succeed  him  as  Attorney,  offered  to 
pay  Buckingham  ten  thousand  pounds  for  the  post.  Lady 
Buckingham  supported  the  lover  of  her  niece  ;  but  the 
King,  when  he  put  the  Seals  into  Bacon's  hands,  himself 
passed  the  patent  of  office  to  Yelverton  ;  who  refused  to 
contract  an  obligation  to  Villiers,  though  urged  by  Arch- 
bishop Abbott  and  the  Duke  of  Lenox  to  conciliate  the 
chief  authority  in  the  bedchamber  and  the  closet.  Yel- 
verton's  offences  are  that  he  has  been  very  manly,  and 
that  he  occupies  a  very  high  post. 


304  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XII.  11.  11.  Unhappily,  in  the  exercise  of  powers  not  well  de- 
fined, he  has  given  an  advantage  to  his  hot  and  unscru- 

1fi20 

Nt>v.  10.  Pul°us  enemy,  Coke.  A  new  charter  has  been  lately 
passed  to  the  city  of  London,  with  clauses  favorable  to 
the  citizens,  which  Coke  has  no  trouble  in  persuading 
James  trench  on  the  prerogatives  of  Ms  Crown.  It  is 
not  pretended  that  Yelverton  took  money  for  inserting 
these  clauses,  though  it  is  admitted  for  the  defence  that 
in  putting  them  into  the  charter  he  went  beyond  his 
powers.  Sir  Henry  submits  his  error  to  the  King's  judg- 
ment. Such  a  course  suits  neither  Buckingham  nor 
Coke,  who  want  his  fine  and  the  profits  on  his  place. 
Cited  into  the  Star  Chamber,  over  which  Bacon,  as  Lord 
Chancellor,  presides,  Yelverton  admits  his  indiscretion, 
and  Bacon,  who  cannot  deny  his  fault,  essays  to  soften 
his  judges.  The  notes  for  his  speech,  written  in  his 
own  hand,  remain  at  Lambeth  Palace.  They  stand  as 
under :  — 

BACON'S  NOTES  ON  YELVEKTON'S  CASE. 

"  Sorry  for  the  person,  being  a  gentleman  that  I  lived 
with  in  Gray's  Inn,  served  with  when  I  was  Attorney, 
joined  with  since  in  many  services,  and  one  that  ever 
gave  me  more  attributes  in  public  than  I  deserved ;  and, 
besides,  a  man  of  very  good  parts,  wliich  with  me  is  friend- 


11.  Lambeth  MSS.  936,  fol.  133;  Yelverton's  Speech  in  the  Star  Chamber, 
Nov.  10,  1620,  S.  P.  0.;  Locke  to  Carleton,  Nov.  11,  1620,  S.  P.  0.;  Dom.  Pa- 
pers, cxvii.  76. 


NOTES  ON  YELVERTON'S  CASE.          305 

ship  at  first  sight,  much  more  joined  -with  an  ancient  XII.  11. 
acquaintance.     But,  as  a  judge,  I  hold  the  offence  very     — 

Ifilfi 

great,  and  that  without  pressing  measure  ;  upon  which  I  N 
will  only  make  a  few  observations,  and  so  leave  it.  First, 
I  observe  the  danger  and  consequence  of  the  offence  ;  for 
if  it  be  suffered  that  the  Learned  Counsel  shall  practise 
the  art  of  multiplication  upon  their  warrants,  the  Crown 
will  be  destroyed  in  small  time.  The  Great  Seal,  the 
Privy  Seal,  Signet,  are  solemn  things,  but  they  follow  the 
King's  hand.  It  is  the  bill  drawn  by  the  Learned  Counsel 
that  leads  the  King's  hand.  Next,  I  note  the  nature  of 
the  defence  ;  as,  first,  that  it  was  error  in  judgment.  For 
this,  surely,  if  the  offence  were  small  though  clear,  or 
great  but  doubtful,  I  could  hardly  sentence  it.  For  it  is 
hard  to  draw  a  straight  line  by  steadiness  of  hand,  but  it 
could  not  be  the  swerving  of  the  hand.  And  herein  I 
note  the  wisdom  of  the  law  of  England,  which  termeth 
the  highest  contempts  and  excesses  of  authority  mispri- 
sions,  which  (if  you  take  the  sound  and  derivation  of  the 
word)  is  but  mistaken.  But  if  you  take  the  use  and  ac- 
ceptation of  the  word,  it  is  high  and  heinous  contempt 
and  usurpation  of  authority.  Whereof  the  reason  I  take 
to  be,  and  the  same  excellently  imposed,  for  that  main 
mistaking  it  is  ever  joined  with  contempt;  for  he  that 
reveres  will  not  easily  mistake  ;  but  he  that  slights  and 
thinks  of  the  greatness  of  his  place  more  than  of  the 
duty  of  his  place  will  soon  commit  misprisions." 

Coke,  furious  at  the  sound  of  such  mild,  soft  words, 

T 


306  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XII.  11.  demands  from  the  Court  a   sentence   of  imprisonment 

for  life  and  a  fine  of  six  thousand  pounds.     Even  the 

xov       judges   °f  the   Star   Chamber  will   not   go   his   length. 

They   condemn   Yelverton   to   a   fine  of  four   thousand 

pounds. 

DPO.  12.  Two  great  offices,  the  Treasury  and  the  Attorney- 
Generalship,  are  now  for  sale.  Buyers  crowd  in  ;  for 
this  system  of  ruining  men  in  order  to  vend  their  posts 
is  new,  and  no  one  yet  perceives  that  to  purchase  a  great 
office  is  to  be  in  future  the  first  step  towards  destruction. 
Montagu  bids  for  the  Staff;  and  as  the  purchase,  if 
made,  will  cause  him  to  leave  the  King's  Bench,  Lady 
Buckingham  promotes  his  suit,  that  she  may  raise  Ley 
to  the  rank  of  Lord  Chief  Justice  and  marry  him  to  her 
pauper  niece.  On  going  down  to  Newmarket  to  see  the 
King,  Montagu  calls  to  tell  Bacon  he  hopes  to  bring  back 
with  him  the  Staff.  "  Take  heed  what  you  do,  my 
Lord,"  says  the  Chancellor  ;  "  wood  is  dearer  at  New- 
market than  at  any  other  place  in  England."  The  Treas- 
ury, with  the  title  of  Mandeville,  costs  Sir  Henry  Mon- 
tagu no  less  than  twenty  thousand  pounds. 

13.  Coventry  buys  the  Attorney's  office,  and  Heath 
becomes  Solicitor  in  his  place.  At  both  ends  Bucking- 
ham makes  his  profit.  Not  to  speak  of  present  bribes,  he 

12.  Apophthegms    in   Eesuscitatio,   42;    Locke  to  Carleton,  Dec.   2,  1620, 
S.  P.  0. 

13.  Woodford  to  Nethersole,  Feb.  2,  1621,  S.  P.  0. ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton, 
Feb.  3, 1621,  S.  P.  0. 


1620. 
Dec. 


SIR   LIONEL   CRANFIELD.  307 

so  arranges  the  game  that  these  two  removals  bring  him,  xn.  13. 
or  save  him,  eight  hundred  pounds  a  year.     Lady  Buck- 
ingham presents  the  King's  Bench  to  Ley. 

These  profits  and  promotions  edge  the  tooth  for  more. 

14.  In  the  crowd  of  able  and  unscrupulous  men  who 
wait  in  the  anteroom  of  Villiers,  and  who  build  their 
fortunes  on  him,  there  is  none  more  able  or  more  un- 
scrupulous than  Sir  Lionel  Cranfield.  He  had  risen  from 
the  grade  of  a  London  apprentice,  through  the  useful  and 
unclean  offices  of  a  receiver,  a  contractor,  and  a  surveyor 
of  public  income,  to  the  rank  of  a  Knight,  a  member 
of  Parliament,  and  a  Master  of  Requests,  before  he  got 
introduced  to  the  Villiers  gang.  His  life,  indeed,  has 
been  a  study  of  safe  and  decorous  villany.  He  got  his 
first  step  by  making  love  to  his  master's  daughter ;  he 
grew  rich  by  cheating  the  customs  ;  he  won  notice  from 
the  Council  by  telling  them  how  to  squeeze  rich  aldermen 
while  lightening  the  load  on  such  poor  devils  as  him- 
self; he  secured  the  protection  of  Lord  Northampton  by 
a  bribe  of  land  which  was  not  his  own ;  he  pleased  the 
King  by  a  plan  for  jobbing  away  the  Crown  lands  on  a 
more  extensive  scale  ;  he  fixed  himself  on  Buckingham 
by  betraying  to  him,  or  to  his  cause,  his  first  patrons,  the 
Howards.  Cranfield  was  the  chief  instrument  in  de- 

14.  Doquets,  April  1.  1605,  Dec.  20,  1607,  May  31,  1610;  Sign  Manuals,  No. 
49;  Minute,  Undated  Papers  of  1607,  xxviii.  81;  Northampton  to  Lake,  Aug. 
12, 1612,  S.  P.  0.;  Winwood  to  Lake,  Mar.  29,  1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Brent  to  Carle- 
ton,  Jan.  31,  1618,  May  29,  1619,  S.  P.  0. ;  Xethersole  to  Carleton,  Jan.  18, 
1620,  S.  P.  0. 


308  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XII.  14.  nouncing  Suffolk  and  placing  the  Staff  in  Buckingham's 

hands  for  sale.     To  reward  this  service,  Suffolk's  son-in- 
1620. 
j^      law,  Viscount  Wallingford,  was  compelled  by  threats  of 

prosecution,  fine,  and  ruin,  to  surrender  to  Cranfield  the 
Court  of  "Wards.  Only  a  villain  of  stony  heart  and 
brazen  cheek  could  have  either  done  this  deed  or  taken 
this  reward  ;  for  these  Howards  whom  he  betrayed  and 
spoiled  were  the  very  men  who  brought  him  into  notice, 
presented  him  at  court,  and  procured  for  him  a  seat  in 
the  House  of  Commons.  But,  in  truth,  there  is  no  act 
of  turpitude,  short  of  the  vulgar  crimes  for  which  men 
are  hung,  at  which  Cranfield,  when  his  interests  call, 
would  stop. 

15.  Bishop  Goodman,  who  knew  him  well,  and  who 
has  left  a  defence  of  him,  tuch  as  it  is,  confesses  for 
him  to  more  dubious  conduct  and  to  more  safe  rascal- 
ities than  would  have  blasted  the  credit  of  ten  ordinary 
men.  Courting  the  society  of  wits  and  scholars,  pre- 
tending to  wit  himself,  he  has  no  true  knowledge  of 
letters,  no  true  sympathy  for  such  weak  fry  as  poets 
and  playwrights.  Pelf  is  his  god.  His  greed  of  money 
is  a  brisk  passion,  and  he  has  a  perfect  familiarity  with 
the  crooked  wavs  in  which  money  can  be  got.  No  rogue 
can  deceive  Cranfield.  "  Tush  man  !  "  he  will  say,  "  I 
was  bred  in  the  city."  His  hand  is  in  every  one's  purse  ; 
and  woe  to  the  man  on  whose  place  he  has  set  his 

15.  Goodman,  i.  295-308;   Coryat's  Description  of  a  Philosophical  Feast, 
Dom.  Papers,  Ixvi,  2.  S.  P.  0. 


JOHN  WILLIAMS.  309 

heart!  To  pull  down  judges  and  councillors,  for  his  xn.  15. 
own  advancement  and  for  his  patron's  gain,  is  the  task  — 
to  which  he  has  now  devoted  a  busy  and  teeming  brain. 
Since  his  marriage  with  Lady  Buckingham's  niece,  he 
has  been  suffered  to  mulct  and  plunder  at  his  ease  ; 
and  though  some  of  his  victims,  mad  with  their  losses, 
threaten  to  cut  his  throat,  the  audacious  speculator  in 
human  roguery  holds  his  course  as  though  there  were 
no  retribution  for  injustice,  either  in  this  world  or  in  the 
next.  A  loftier  vista  opens  to  his  sight ;  the  Staff  and 
the  peerage  seem  within  his  reach  ;  but  he  can  only 
grasp  them  by  the  help  of  that  powerful  and  vindictive 
woman  to  whom  he  lately  owed  the  pleasant  alternative 
of  destruction  or  a  wife. 

16.  This  great  lady,  if  old  enough  to  have  grand- 
children, is  not,  in  her  own  belief,  too  old  to  have  a 
lover  ;  and  one  more  subtle  than  a  serpent  is  at  her 
side.  John  Williams  was  the  chaplain  to  Egerton  when 
Egerton  held  the  Seals  ;  but  while  blessing  his  master's 
meat  and  wine,  he  kept  an  eye  on  business  ;  and  when 
Bacon,  coming  to  York  House,  offered  to  continue  him 
in  his  post,  the  divine  refused,  having  begun  to  dream 
of  recovering  the  custody  of  the  Great  Seal  from  the 
lawyers  to  the  churchmen.  In  the  face  of  candidates 
like  Bacon,  Montagu,  and  Coke,  such  a  hope  would 
seem  to  most  men  vain  ;  not  so  to  one  versed  in  the 

16.  Doquets,  Nov.  6,  1619;  Welden,  127, 130;  Speaker's  Note,  Feb.  6,  1621, 
S.  P.  0.;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Mar.  20,  1620,  S.  P.  0. 


310  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XII.  16.  arts  by  which  a  low  order  of  monks  and  priests  have  in 

all  ages  striven  to  enslave  the  world.     He  makes  court 
1630. 
j^      to  Buckingham's  mother ;   convinced  that  no  woman  is 

insensible  to  the  flatteries  of  love,  least  of  all  an  am- 
bitious woman,  greedy  for  pleasure  and  past  her  prime. 
When  he  has  interested  her  passions  in  his  career,  his 
fight  is  well  nigh  won.  She  puts  him  in  the  way  to 
rise.  She  recommends  him  to  her  son  ;  so  shaping  his 
course  that,  as  either  Lord  Chancellor  or  as  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  he  may  soon  appear  to  the  world  in 
rank  and  power  a  husband  less  unworthy  of  herself. 

Buckingham  finds  in  Williams  a  divine  of  easy  virtue 
and  specious  talents  ;  who  never  prates  to  him  about  re- 
form, who  pays  no  homage  to  the  primate,  who  detests 
the  House  of  Commons  with  all  his  soul.  At  a  word 
from  his  new  mistress  or  from  her  son,  Williams  would 
not  scruple  to  send  his  archbishop  to  the  Fleet,  or  to 
resist  and  insult  the  whole  Puritan  parliament.  A  man 
capable  of  rising  through  an  old  woman's  folly  and  a 
young  man's  vices  has  not  been  slow  to  rise.  The  needy 
chaplain  has  become  Dean  of  Salisbury  and  Dean  of 
Westminster.  He  is  to  have  the  first  mitre  that  falls 
into  the  King's  gift.  If  Bacon  can  be  ruined,  he  is  to 
have  the  Seals. 

17.  To  three  such  schemers  as  an  old  Chief  Justice,  a 


17.  Gerard  to  Carleton,  May  9,  1617,  S.  P.  0. ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  May 
10,  1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Proposals  concerning  the  Chancery,  1650;  Council  Beg., 
Sept.  28,  1622. 


THE   CONFEDERACY   AGAINST   BACON.  311 

Master  of  the  Court  of  Wards,  and  an  ex-chaplain  to  the  XII.  17. 
Lord  Chancellor,  urged  by  the  sharpest  passions  of  cu- 
pidity and  revenge,  and  backed  by  the  whole  tribe  of 
Villiers,  an  accusation  against  the  holder  of  the  Seals  is 
easy  enough  to  frame.  The  courts  of  law  are  full  of 
abuses.  The  highest  officer  of  the  realm  has  no  salary 
from  the  state.  Custom  imposes  on  him  a  host  of  ser- 
vants ;  officers  of  his  court  and  of  his  household  ;  mas- 
ters, secretaries,  ushers,  clerks,  receivers,  porters,  none 
of  whom  receives  a  mark  a  year  from  the  Crown  ;  men 
who  have  bought  their  places,  and  who  are  paid,  as  he 
himself  is  paid,  in  fees  and  fines.  The  amounts  of  half 
these  fees  are  left  to  chance,  to  the  hope  or  gratitude  of 
the  suitor,  often  to  the  cupidity  of  the  servant  or  the 
length  of  the  suitor's  purse.  The  certain  fines  of  Chan- 
cery, as  subsequent  inquiries  show,  are  only  thirteen 
hundred  pounds  a  year,  the  fluctuating  fines  still  less  ; 
beyond  which  beggarly  sum  the  great  establishments  of 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  his  court,  his  household,  and  his 
followers,  gentlemen  of  quality,  sons  of  peers  and  pre- 
lates, magistrates,  deputy-lieutenants  of  counties,  knights 
of  the  shire,  have  all  to  live  on  fees  and  presents.  The 
causes  heard  are  many,  —  five  or  six  hundred  in  every 
term  ;  the  servants  of  the  court  are  not  all  honest ;  some 
indeed  are  flagitious  rogues.  The  Chancellor  has  not 
taken  them  voluntarily  into  his  service,  nor  can  he  al- 
ways turn  them  adrift :  their  places  are  their  freeholds. 
Among  thousands  of  suitors,  all  of  whom  must  have  paid 
fees  into  the  court,  half  of  whom  must  be  smarting  under 


312  FRANCIS   BACOX. 

XII.  17.  the  pangs  of  a  lost  cause,  it  will  be  strange  indeed  if  cun- 
ning, malice,  and  unscrupulous  power  combined,  cannot 

1620. 

p^      find  some  charge  that  may  be  tortured  into  the  appear- 
ance of  a  wrong. 

18.  They  find  a  fitting  instrument  for  this  nefarious 
search.  John  Churchill  is  a  wretch  whose  days  have 
been  spent  in  the  most  sordid  tricks  and  chicaneries  of 
law.  His  father  was  a  defaulter  in  the  Court  of  Wards, 
he  himself  was  early  in  life  concerned  in  a  most  infa- 
mous fraud.  Ten  years  before  he  lends  his  services  to 
the  enemies  of  Lord  St.  Albans  he  sold  to  Sir  John 
Bourchier,  for  a  thousand  pounds  down  and  eighty 
pounds  a  year  for  life,  a  manor  which  Bourchier  found 
that  he  had  previously  conveyed  to  his  two  uncles  for 
twenty  shillings. 

Bacon,  who  found  this  rascal  occupying  a  place  of 
trust  in  the  Court  of  Chancery,  detecting  him  in  an  act 
of  forgery  and  extortion,  has  been  compelled  to  turn  him 
into  the  street.  Broken  for  his  bad  faith,  liable  to  severe 
punishment  for  his  fraud,  sore  against  his  superior,  he 
is  just  the  man  for  Williams  and  Coke.  Familiar  with 
the  court  and  with  its  clients,  every  vicious  witness,  every 
maddened  loser,  every  knave  who  has  been  exposed, 
every  dupe  who  has  been  hurt,  are  known  to  him  by 

18.  Grant  Book,  62;  Cramp  to  Churchill,  April  14,  1605,  S.  P.  0.;  Acton  to 
Churchill,  April  14,  1605,  S.  P.  0.;  Mabel  to  Churchill,  Aug.  28, 1605,  S.  P.  0.; 
Ellis  Churchill  to  Churchill,  Aug.  29,  Sept.  19,  20,  Oct.  3,  1605,  S.  P.  0.; 
Bourchier  to  Cecil,  June  16,  1611,  S.  P.  0. ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Mar.  24, 
1621,  S.  P.  0. 


JOHN  CHURCHILL.  313 

name  and  sight.     A  promise  of  protection  from  the  law,  XII.  18. 
with  a  restoration  to  his  place  on  Bacon's  fall,  sharpens     — 
at  once  his  greed  and  his  hate.     He  hunts  among  the 
victims  of  Chancery  law.     Every  one  who  has  a  grievance, 
or   who   fancies  he   has  a  grievance,  against  the   Lord 
Chancellor,  he   persuades  or  compels  to  set  down  his 
tale. 

19.  Ever  since  the  day  when  Bacon  got  the  Seals, 
Coke  has  been  scoring  up  accusations  against  him.  Lists 
were  framed  by  the  Villiers  clan,  ready  to  lodge  with  the 
King,  before  the  Chancellor  had  been  a  year  in  office. 
Every  month  has  helped  them  to  new  matter.  By  the 
industry  of  Churchill  they  are  now  prepared  to  go  before 
the  Star  Chamber ;  but  a  patriotic  proposal,  made  and 
pressed  on  the  Crown  by  Bacon  himself,  shifts  the  scene 
of  their  accusation  from  the  Star  Chamber  to  the  House 
of  Peers. 

19.  Yelverton  to  Bacon,  Sept.  3, 1617,  in  Birch,  138. 


14 


314  FRANCIS   BACON 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE    ACCUSATION. 

xm.  1.  1.  IT  is  no  easy  berth  that  Lord  Mandeville  has  bought 
for  his  twenty  thousand  pounds.  Soon  he  becomes 
aware  that  greedy  eyes  are  on  the  Staff,  that  Buckingham 
is  restless,  and  the  Villiers  clan  hungry.  The  more  he 
tries  to  please,  the  faster  he  multiplies  his  foes.  Worse 
than  all  an  empty  exchequer  gapes  and  yawns.  "  There 
is  not  a  mark  in  the  Treasury,"  he  says  to  Bacon.  "  Be 
of  good  cheer  then,  my  Lord,"  laughs  the  Chancellor ; 
"  now  you  shall  see  the  bottom  of  your  business  at  the 
first." 

2.  Something  must  be  done.  Bacon  says,  Call  a  par- 
liament. The  spirit  of  reform  runs  high  and  grievances 
groan  on  every  tongue.  To  meet  the  country  is  to  court 
complaint  and  risk  collision ;  yet  Bacon  presses  this 
counsel  on  the  King,  for  a  series  of  astounding  events 


1.  Bacon's  Apophthegms,  in  Resttscitatio,  42. 

2.  Council  Reg.,  Dec.  27, 1620 ;  Teynham  to  Edmonds,  Dec.  23, 1620,  S.  P.  0. ; 
Howard  to  Naunton,  Dec.  26,  1620,  S.  P.  0. ;  Replies  of  Peers  and  Bishops  on 
the  Palatinate  Contributions,  Undated  Papers,  cxviii.  43,  44,  45,  57,  58,  59,  60, 
S.  P.  0.;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Dec.  22, 1620,  S.  P.  0.;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  507, 
508. 


THE  KING'S  POVERTY.  315 

abroad  makes  a  prompt  and  permanent  reconciliation  Xin.  2. 
of  the  English  King  and  Commons  a  statesman's  gravest 
care.  The  Reformed  Religion  is  at  stake.  Deploying 
her  troops  and  the  troops  of  her  Austrian  arid  Bavarian 
allies  into  line,  Spain  has  enveloped  Germany  in  cloud 
and  flame,  opening  the  Thirty  Years'  War  with  the  sack 
of  the  Palatinate  and  the  occupation  of  Prague.  Max 
is  master  of  the  Hradshin,  Spinola  of  the  Rhine. 

England,  not  less  than  the  Protestant  faith,  is  smitten 
by  this  blow ;  for  Frederick  and  the  Queen  of  Hearts 
are  fugitives  from  Prague ;  the  Winter  King  and  Queen, 
as  the  fanciful  Germans  call  them,  owning  neither  prin- 
cipality nor  kingdom,  not  even  a  home,  on  German  soil. 

James,  fooled  by  the  Spanish  Jew,  Gondomar,  is  mum- 
bling about  a  Spanish  match  for  his  son  Charles  when 
surprised  in  his  cups  by  news  that  Max  and  Spinola  have 
robbed  his  daughter  and  her  children  of  their  native  and 
elective  crowns.  What  can  he  do  ?  His  purse  is  empty, 
—  his  credit  gone.  The  goldsmiths  of  Lombard-street 
will  not  cash  his  bonds.  He  tries,  indeed,  to  beg  funds 
from  a  patriotic  and  warlike  people  for  the  recovery  of 
the  Palatinate,  making  of  the  great  Protestant  ques- 
tion a  small  affair  of  his  own  household;  but  the  trick 
is  stale,  the  confidence  of  his  people  gone.  No  man 
will  give  or  lend.  Used  as  the  King  is  to  evasion,  he 
is  startled  by  the  shabbiness  of  his  peers  in  this  great 
need.  The  Roman  Catholic  lords  refuse  on  the  ground 
of  sickness,  debts,  and  out  of  town  ;  their  true  reason, 
as  he  ought  to  know,  is  their  secret  sympathy  for  Spain 


316  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIII.  2.  and  Bavaria  as  the  armed  protectors  of  the  Roman 
Church ;  but  the  bishops,  the  deans,  the  English  clergy, 
with  rare  exceptions,  close  their  fists  with  the  same 
hypocritical  lies.  The  goldsmiths  speak  like  men  ;  they 
will  not  part  with  their  money  because  they  feel  no  confi- 
dence in  the  securities  offered  for  their  gold.  They 
will  send  the  King,  they  say,  ten  thousand  pounds  as 
a  free  gift,  rather  than  lend  him  a  hundred  thousand 
with  his  crown  for  pledge. 

3.  Under  such  discouragements  from  his  courtiers, 
James  listens  to  the  voice  of  his  Chancellor.  If  Lord 
St.  Albans,  in  his  earlier  days,  often  had  to  differ  from 
the  House  of  Commons  on  subsidies  and  grants,  it  had 
never  been  through  want  of  patriotism  in  the  knights 
and  burgesses ;  only  through  their  fears  lest  the  moneys 
granted  by  them  should  be  wasted,  not  on  the  regiments 
and  fleets,  but  on  the  Herberts  and  Carrs.  In  the  hour 
of  peril  St.  Albans  feels  that  he  can  trust  their  patriot- 
ism for  supplies.  The  success  of  Max  011  the  Weissen- 
berg,  the  devastations  of  Spinola  on  the  Neckar  and  the 
Main,  disasters  the  most  signal  which  have  yet  befallen 
the  cause  of  God  and  the  cause  of  freedom,  bring  the 
external  danger  to  our  doors.  The  nation  feels  its  loss. 
Men  mourn  the  King's  indifference  to  the  cries  of  relig- 
ion and  the  claims  of  nature ;  and  a  popular  frenzy 

3.  Thomas  Scot's  Vox  Populi,  1620;  Second  edition  of  the  same,  revised, 
1620 ;  Undated  Domestic  Papers,  cxviii.  102,  105,  S.  P.  0. ;  Murray  to  Morton, 
Jan.  11,  1621,  S.  P.  0. 


1621. 
Jan. 


SCHEME   OF   REFORM.  317 

r 

breaks  into  accusing  prose  and  song,  pouring  its  subtle  XIII.  3. 
fire  through  the  veins  and  arteries  of  the  land  in  de- 
fiance of  the  most  rigorous  proclamations  and  the  most 
savage  censorship  of  the  press. 

Bacon  would  meet  the  people.  Let  the  King  call  a 
parliament  together,  state  the  situation,  and  throw  him- 
self heart  and  soul  into  the  religious  war ! 

4.  This  time  there  should  be  no  mistake.  The  ses- 
sions of  1610  and  1614  were  lost  through  quarrels ; 
not  one  Act  passed  in  either.  Grievances  must  now  be 
met ;  reasonable  men  must  be  gained  over  to  support 
the  Crown.  The  enemy  must  see  in  England  only  one 
party,  one  flag.  Therefore  let  the  King  become  the 
leader  of  the  Commons,  let  the  Government  adopt  the 
business  of  reform ! 

Many  voices  in  the  Council  rise  against  these  proposals 
of  the  Lord  Chancellor.  But  the  Queen  of  Hearts  cries 
loud  for  help  ;  the  bankers  will  lend  no  more,  the  nobles 
will  give  no  more  ;  so  James,  with  many  a  pause  and 
doubt,  with  many  a  sigh  for  the  days,  now  gone  forever, 
when  he  could  chase  the  stag  and  quaff  his  strong  Greek 
wine  untroubled  by  the  clash  of  arms  or  the  brawl  of 
tongues,  consents  to  Bacon's  plan. 

The  Chancellor,  with  the  help  of  four  great  lawyers, 
including  Montagu  and  Coke,  draws  up  a  scheme  to  pro- 


4.  Bacon  to  James,  Oct.  10,  1620,  Mar.  11,  1621;  to  Buckingham,  Oct.  19, 
Dec.  19, 1620,  printed  in  Birch,  1763,  orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  936 ;  Statutes 
of  the  Realm,  iv.  1207. 


318  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIII.  4.  mote  a  safer  feeling  between  the  House  of  Commons  and 
the  Crown ;  a  scheme  of  reform  as  well  as  of  defence  ; 
Jan.  involving  an  immediate  issue  of  writs,  an  honest  hearing 
of  public  complaints,  an  abolition  of  unjust  or  unpopular 
monopolies,  a  withdrawal  of  some  of  the  more  obnoxious 
patents,  above  all  an  instant  increase  of  the  royal  fleet. 

5.  This  statement,  addressed  through  Buckingham  to 
the  King,  and  signed  by  Bacon,  Montagu,  Heath,  Coke, 
and  Crewe,  has  not  heretofore  been  printed  :  — 

November  29, 1620. 

MY  VERY  GOOD  LORD, — 

It  may  please  Ms  Majesty  to  call  to  mind,  that,  when 
we  gave  his  Majesty  our  last  account  of  Parliament's 
business  in  his  presence,  we  went  over  the  grievances  of 
the  last  Parliament  in  7mo.,  with  our  opinion,  by  way  of 
probable  conjecture,  which  of  them  are  like  to  fall  off, 
and  which  may  perchance  stick  and  be  renewed.  And 
we  did  also  then  acquaint  his  Majesty  that  we  thought  it 
no  less  fit  to  take  into  consideration  grievances  of  like 
nature  which  have  sprung  since  the  said  last  session, 
which  are  the  more  like  to  be  called  upon  by  how  much 
they  are  the  more  fresh,  signifying  withal  that  they  were 
of  two  kinds.  Some  proclamations  and  commissions, 
and  many  patents,  which,  nevertheless,  we  did  not  then 
trouble  his  Majesty  withal,  in  particular  ;  partly,  for  that 
we  were  not  then  fully  prepared  (it  being  a  work  of  some 

B.  Tanner  MSS.  290,  fol.  33. 


SCHEME   OF  EEFOEM.  319 

length),  and  partly  for  that  we  then  desired  and  obtained  XIII.  5. 
•leave  of  his  Majesty  to  communicate  them  with  the  coun- 
cil-table. But  since,  I  the  Chancellor  received  his  Majes- 
ty's pleasure  by  Secretary  Calvert  that  we  should  first 
present  them  to  his  Majesty  with  some  advice  thereupon 
provisional,  and  as  we  are  capable,  and  thereupon  know 
his  Majesty's  pleasure,  before  they  be  brought  to  the 
table,  which  is  the  work  of  this  despatch.  And  herein 
his  Majesty  may  be  likewise  pleased  to  call  to  mind  that 
we  then  said,  and  do  now  humbly  make  remonstrance  to 
his  Majesty,  that  in  this  we  do  not  so  much  express  the 
sense  of  our  own  minds  or  judgments  upon  the  particu- 
lars, as  we  do  personate  the  Lower  House,  and  cast  with 
ourselves  what  is  like  to  be  stirred  there.  And,  therefore, 
if  there  be  anything,  either  in  respect  of  matter,  or  the 
persons  that  stand  not  so  well  with  his  Majesty's  good 
liking,  that  his  Majesty  would  be  graciously  pleased  not 
to  impute  it  unto  us,  and  withal  to  consider  that  it  is  to 
this  good  end  that  his  Majesty  may  either  remove  such 
of  them  as  in  his  own  princely  judgment,  and  with  the 
advice  of  his  council,  he  shall  think  fit  to  be  removed,  or 
be  the  better  provided  to  carry  through  such  of  them  as 
he  shall  think  fit  to  be  maintained  in  case  they  should  be 
moved,  and  so  the  less  surprised. 

First,  therefore,  to  begin  with  the  patents.  We  find 
three  sorts  of  patents  (and  those  somewhat  frequent  since 
the  session  of  7mo.)  which  in  genere,  we  conceive,  may 
be  most  subject  to  exception  of  grievance  ;  patents  of  old 
debts,  patents  of  concealments,  and  patents  of  monopolies 


320  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XUI.  5.  and  forfeitures  of,  or  dispensations  with,  penal  laws,  to- 
gether  with   some   other  particulars  which   fall   not  se 
1621. 
jan      properly  under  any  one  head. 

In  these  three  kinds  we  do  humbly  advise  several 
courses  to  be  taken.  For  the  first  two,  of  old  debts  and 
concealments,  for  that  they  are  in  a  mode  legal  (though 
there  may  be  found  out  some  point  in  law  to  overthrow 
them),  yet  it  would  be  a  long  business  by  course  of  law, 
and  a  matter  unusual  by  act  of  council,  to  call  them  in. 
But  that  truth  moves  us  chiefly  to  avoid  the  questioning 
them  at  the  council-table  is  because  if  they  shall  be  taken 
away  by  the  King's  act  it  may  let  in  upon  him  a  flood  of 
suitors  for  recompense ;  whereas,  if  they  be  taken  away  at 
the  suit  of  the  Parliament,  and  a  law  thereupon  made,  it 
frees  the  King,  and  leaves  him  to  give  recompense  only 
where  he  shall  be  pleased  to  extend  grace.  Wherefore 
we  conceive  the  most  convenient  way  will  be,  if  some 
grave  and  discreet  gentlemen  of  the  country,  such  as 
have  at  least  relation  to  the  court,  make  at  fit  times  some 
modest  motions  touching  the  same  :  That  his  Majesty 
would  be  graciously  pleased  to  permit  some  laws  to  pass 
(for  the  time  past  only),  nowhere  touching  his  Majesty's 
legal  power  to  free  his  subjects  from  the  same,  and  so  his 
Majesty,  after  due  consultation,  to  give  way  unto  them. 
For  the  third,  we  do  humbly  advise  that  such  of  them  as 
his  Majesty  shall  give  way  to  have  called  in  may  be 
questioned  before  the  council-table,  either  as  granted 
contrary  to  his  Majesty's  Book  of  Bounty,  or  found  since 
to  have  been  abused  in  the  execution,  or  otherwise  by 


SCHEME   OF   REFORM.  321 

experience  discovered  to  be  burdensome  to  the  country.  XIII.  5. 
.  But  herein  we  shall  add  this  further  humble  advice,  that 
it  be  not  done  as  matter  of  preparation  to  a  Parliament, 
but  that  occasion  be  taken,  partly  upon  revising  of  the 
Book  of  Bounty,  and  partly  upon  the  fresh  example  in 
Sir  Henry  Yelverton's  case  of  abuse  and  surreption  in 
obtaining  of  patents,  and  likewise  that  it  be  but  as  a  con- 
tinuance in  conformity  of  the  council's  former  diligence 
and  vigilance,  which  hath  already  stayed  and  revoked 
divers  patents  of  like  nature,  whereof  we  are  ready  to 
show  the  examples.  Thus,  we  conceive,  his  Majesty  shall 
keep  his  greatness,  and  somewhat  shall  be  done  in  Parlia- 
ment and  somewhat  out  of  Parliament,  as  the  nature  of 
the  subject  and  business  requires.  We  have  sent  his 
Majesty  herewith  a  schedule  of  the  particulars  of  these 
three  kinds,  wherein  for  the  first  two  we  have  set  down  all 
that  we  could  at  this  time  discover.  But  in  the  latter  we 
have  chosen  out  but  some  that  are  most  in  speech,  and 
which  do  most  tend  either  to  the  vexation  of  the  common 
people,  or  the  discontenting  of  the  gentlemen  and  justices, 
the  one  being  the  original,  the  other  the  representative  of 
the  Commons.  There  be  many  more  of  like  nature,  but 
not  of  like  weight,  nor  so  much  rumored,  which  to  take 
away  now  in  a  blaze  will  give  more  scandal  that  such 
things  were  granted  than  cause  thanks  that  they  be  now 
revoked.  The  council  may  be  still  doing.  And  because  all 
things  may  appear  to  his  Majesty  in  the  true  light,  we  have 
set  down  as  well  the  suitors  as  the  grants,  and  not  only 
those  in  whose  names  the  patent  came  to  our  knowledge. 
14*  u 


322  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIIL  5.  For  proclamations  and  commissions,  they  are  tender 
things,  and  we  are  willing  to  meddle  with  them  sparingly ; 
Jaiu  for,  as  for  such  as  do  but  wait  upon  patents  (wherein  his 
Majesty,  as  we  conceived,  gave  some  approbation  to  have 
them  taken  away),  it  is  better  they  fell  away  by  taking 
away  the  patent  itself  than  otherwise,  for  a  proclamation 
cannot  be  revoked  but  by  a  proclamation,  which  we  would 
avoid.  For  the  Commonwealth  Bills  which  his  Majesty 
approved  to  be  put  in  readiness,  and  some  other  things, 
there  will  be  time  enough  hereafter  to  give  his  Majesty 
account,  and,  amongst  them,  of  the  extent  of  his  Majesty's 
pardon,  which,  if  his  subjects  do  their  part,  as  we  hope 
they  will,  we  do  wish  may  be  more  liberal  than  of  later 
times,  pardons  being  the  ancient  remuneration  in  Parlia- 
ment. Thus,  hoping  his  Majesty,  out  of  his  gracious  and 
accustomed  benignity,  will  accept  of  our  faithful  endeav- 
ors and  supply  the  rest  by  his  own  princely  wisdom  and 
direction  ;  and  also  humbly  praying  his  Majesty,  that, 
when  he  hath  himself  considered  of  our  humble  proposi- 
tions, he  will  give  us  leave  to  impart  them  all,  or  as  much 
as  he  shall  think  fit,  to  the  lords  of  his  council,  for  the 
better  strength  of  his  service,  we  conclude  with  our 
prayers  for  his  Majesty's  happy  preservation,  and  always 
rest 

Your  Lordship's,  to  be  commanded, 

FR.  VERULAM,  Cane. 
H.  MONTAGU, 
HENRY  HEATH, 
EDW.  COKE, 
RAN.  CREWE. 


CHARACTER   OF   NEW  PARLIAMENT.  323 

6.  The  King  adopts,  or  appears  to  adopt,  this  scheme,  XHI.  6. 
and  writs   go  out  for  the  elections.     To  Bacon's  grief, 

the  nation,  mad  with  news  from  Prague  and  the  Pala- 

Jan. 

tinate,  sends  up  to  Westminster  four  hundred  of  the 
most  violent  men  who  have  ever  met  in  the  Great  Coun- 
cil ;  yet,  with  straight,  swift  meaning  to  do  right,  to 
purge  abuses  in  church  and  state,  to  launch  the  army 
and  the  fleet  against  an  insolent  enemy,  even  a  parlia- 
ment of  fanatics  may  be  turned  to  good.  James,  unhap- 
pily, loses  heart.  Fitful  and  feverish  in  his  moods,  he 
gets  alarmed  by  the  returns,  puts  off  the  opening,  stoops 
to  Gondomar's  tales  potters  once  more  about  a  match  in 
Spain  for  young  Prince  Charles.  Gondomar  regains  his 
power.  While  Spinola  cleanses  Cleves  and  the  Palatinate 
with  fire,  and  the  Dutch  burghers,  smitten  into  warlike 
rage,  rush  to  the  help  of  violated  cities,  James  suspends 
Sir  Robert  Naunton,  Secretary  of  State,  writer  of  the 
admirable  Fragmenta  Regalia,  from  his  public  functions, 
for  merely  giving  some  hope  of  English  aid  to  the  Prot- 
estants of  the  Rhine  ! 

7.  When   allowed  to    meet,  the   knights  and  squires   Jan.  30. 
come  together  in  a  turbulent,  almost  in  a  savage  mood. 
They  listen  with  bent  brows  while  the  poor  King  maun- 

6.  Bacon  to  Buckingham,  Dec.  16,  1620 ;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Jan.  20, 
1621,  S.  P.  0. ;  Lake  to  Carleton,  Jan.  20,  1621,  S.  P.  0. ;  Bacon's  Declaration, 
Jan.  16,  1621,  S.  P.  0. 

7.  James's  Speech  on  opening  Parl.,  Jan.  30,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Note  of  Sir 
George  More's  Report,  Feb.  6,  1621,  S.  P.  0. ;  List  of  Sub-Committee  on  Pa- 
pists, Feb.  5,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Chamberlain,  Feb.  17,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Com.  Jour., 
i.  508,  512,  515,  525. 


324  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XIII.  7.  ders  about  his  love  for  the  Church  and   his   hopes  of 

obtaining  a  Spanish  wife  for  his   son,  about  his  dislike 

1621. 

Jan.  so.  *or  *ne  doings  of  the  Bohemian  Protestants  and  his  wil- 
lingness to  spill  his  own  blood  in  defence  of  those  of 
the  Rhine,  and  when  he  goes  away  to  his  palace  they 
proceed,  in  stern,  bright  haste,  to  purge  their  benches 
from  any  suspicion  of  Popish  taint.  A  committee  searches 
the  vaults.  The  whole  House  takes  the  sacrament  in 
public.  A  second  time,  and  with  added  solemnity  and 
publicity,  the  members  swear  the  oaths  of  supremacy. 
Hollis  and  Britton,  Roman  Catholics  of  good  family,  are 
excluded  from  Parliament.  Shepherd  is  expelled  for 
a  jest  against  the  Puritans.  A  sub-committee  revises 
and  edges  the  penal  laws. 

Feb.  Burgess  and  knight  are  now  in  fearful  earnest.  No 
more  weakness,  no  more  tolerance  !  Max  and  Spinola 
are  at  our  gates. 

8.  Coke,  returned  for  Liskeard  in  Cornwall,  offers 
himself  as  the  champion  of  every  fanatical  cry,  of  every 
mad  antipathy  of  the  hour.  He  yells  for  the  blood  of 
Papists,  for  the  hoards  of  mpnopolists,  for  the  license  of 
free  speech.  His  age,  his  rank,  his  experience  of  the 
world,  his  powers  of  debate,  impose  on  many  of  the  un- 
tried members,  now  serving  their  maiden  session  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Some  take  him  for  a  guide  ;  still 
more  accept  his  aid. 

8.  Com.  Jour.,  i.  610,  514,  519,  523;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Feb.  10,  17, 
1621,  S  P.  0.;  Locke  to  Carleton,  Feb.  16,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Statutes,  iv.  1208. 


Feb. 


HIS  TOLERANCE  UNPOPULAR.  325 

The  money  bills  pass  at  once.  The  Chancellor  has  XIII. 
not  reckoned  on  the  patriotism  of  the  land  in  vain. 
Indeed,  in  their  haste  to  man  the  fleets,  to  put  a  moving 
fort  between  the  coast  of  Essex  and  the  camps  of  Calais 
and  Ostend,  the  burgesses  vote  the  King  two  subsidies 
without  a  dissenting  voice. 

9.  James  takes  this  money,  not  without  joy  and 
wonder.;  but  when  they  ask  him  to  banish  recusants 
from  London,  to  put  down  masses  in  ambassadors'  houses, 
to  disarm  all  the  Papists,  to  prevent  priests  and  Jesuits 
from  going  abroad,  he  will  not  do  it.  In  this  resistance 
to  a  new  persecution,  his  tolerant  Chancellor  stands  at 
his  back,  and  bears  the  odium  of  his  refusal.  Bacon, 
who  thinks  the  penal  laws  too  harsh  already,  will  not 
consent  to  inflame  the  country,  at  such  a  time,  by  a  new 
proclamation  ;  the  penalties  are  strong,  and  in  the  hands 
of  the  magistrates ;  he  sees  no  need  to  spur  their  zeal 
by  royal  proclamations  or  the  enactment  of  more  savage 
laws.  Here  is  a  chance  for  Coke.  Raving  for  gibbets 
and  pillories  in  a  style  to  quicken  the  pulse  of  a  Brownist, 
men  who  are  wild  with  news  from  Heidelberg  or  Prague 
believe  in  his  sincerity  and  partake  his  heat.  To  be 
mild  now,  many  good  men  think,  is  to  be  weak.  In  a 
state  of  war  philosophy  and  tolerance  go  to  the  wall ; 
when  guns  are  pounding  in  the  gates,  even  justice  can 
be  only  done  at  the  drum-head. 

9.  Com.  Jour.,  518,  623;  Speech  of  a  Privy  Councillor  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, Feb.  16,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Locke  to-Carleton,  Feb.  16,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Mur- 
ray to  Carleton,  Feb.  17, 1621,  S.  P.  0. 


326  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIII.  10.  10.  Feeding  these  fiery  humors,  Coke  gets  the  ear 
of  an  active  section  of  the  House,  who  push  him  on, 
Feb  their  orator  of  hate,  as  in  happier  times  they  have  made 
his  great  compeer  their  advocate  of  charity  and  peace. 
Coke  pours  on  them  his  gall.  No  one  in  the  House 
yet  dreams  of  attacking  persons  under  cover  of  a  wish 
to  expose  abuses.  Even  in  the  case  of  Mompesson, 
whose  manufacture  of  gold  and  silver  thread  is  supposed 
by  country  gentlemen  to  have  raised  the  price  of  beer, 
they  declare  in  their  first  petition  to  the  King  that  they 
want  measures  of  redress,  not  injury  to  particular  men. 
But  a  moderation  that  might  end  in  real  good  to  the 
country  is  foreign  to  the  nature  and  designs  of  Coke. 

11.  Sure  of  the  ears  of  a  sect,  Coke  suggests,  as  a 
branch  of  the  Grievances,  that  inquiry  should  be  made 
into  abuses  in  the  courts  of  law,  with  a  view  to  limit 
the  duration  and  cost  of  suits,  more  especially  in  the 
Chancery  and  the  Court  of  Wards.  Doubts  arise  on 
this  as  to  whether  Parliament  has  any  power  over  the 
King's  courts;  when  Bacon,  though  he  fears  and  dis- 
trusts Coke,  and  complains  to  the  King  of  his  insolence, 
meets  the  inquiry  with  open  heart.  The  Commons  are 
helping  to  do  his  work.  Reform  of  the  law,  and  of  the 


10.  Request  concerning  Sir  Giles  Mompesson,  Feb.  27,  1621,  S.  P.  0. ;  Locke 
to  Carleton,  Feb.  24,  1621,  S.  P.  0. 

11.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  May  10,  1617,  S.  P.  0.;  Ordinances  made  by 
the  Rt  Hon.  Sir  Francis  Bacon  for  the  better  Administration  of  Justice  in  the 
Court  of  Chancery,  1642;  Locke  to  Carleton,  Feb.  24,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Com. 
Jour.,  i.  519,  625. 


QUARREL   OF   SCROPE  AND   BERKSHIRE.  327 

courts  of  law,  has  been  his  theme  for  thirty  years.XIII.il. 
When  he  got  the  Seals,  his  very  first  speech  in  Chancery 
proposed  a  scheme  for  removing  abuses  in  fees  and  suits.  Feb 
His  rules  for  conducting  business  were  in  themselves 
the  best  of  reform  bills.  More  than  all,  he  has  intro- 
duced into  that  slow  and  despotic  court  the  substantial 
amendments  of  patience,  courtesy,  and  speed.  Not  a 
cause  is  on  the  lists  unheard.  Vices  remain ;  vices  of 
form,  of  persons,  of  constitution  ;  vices  too  strong  for 
a  single  man,  however  prompt  and  powerful,  to  subdue. 
If  the  House  of  Commons  have  any  search  to  make  into 
his  court  he  offers  them  full  leave  ;  if  they  have  anything 
to  say  on  it  he  bids  them  freely  speak  their  mind.  With- 
out this  leave  they  could  not  move  one  step. 

Blind  to  the  plot  against  him,  the  Chancellor  knows  no 
cause  why  he  should  fear  their  search. 

12.  While  Coke,  under  cover  of  the  public  good,  is 
slowly  sliming  round  his  prey,  the  Chancellor,  called  by 
his  place  to  decide  between  the  quarrels  of  two  peers, 
has  the  honorable  misfortune  to  offend  in  a  peculiar 
manner  the  pride  of  Lady  Buckingham  and  her  obedient 
clan. 

This  scheming  mother  has  fixed  her  eyes  on  Eliza- 
beth Norreys,  daughter  of  Francis  Baron  Norreys  of 
Rycote,  as  a  wife  for  her  son  Kit.  Elizabeth  is  rich,  for 
her  mother  was  an  heiress,  and  she  is  an  only  child.  To 

12.  Lords'  Jour.,  iii.  19,  20;  Locke  to  Carleton,  Feb.  16,  24,  1621,  S.  P.  0.; 
Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Mar.  30,  1621,  S.  P.  0. 


•    328  FBANCIS   BACON. 

XIII.  12.  soften    Lord    Norreys,    he    has  been    created   Viscount 

Thane  and  Earl  of  Berkshire.     But  these  Yilliers  peers, 
1621. 
Feb       these  Purbecks  and  Berkshires,  gall   the  more  ancient 

nobles.  Berkshire  either  pushes  or  strikes  Lord  Scrope, 
a  haughty  peer,  whose  ancestors  have  been  in  the  House 
of  Lords  since  the  days  of  Edward  the  First.  The 
eleventh  Baron  of  his  line  complains  of  this  rude  and 
upstart  earl.  Berkshire  being  in  the  wrong,  Bacon  despite 
bis  known  connection  with  the  Villiers  people,  has  the 
courage  to  send  him  to  the  Fleet  prison  till  he  repents 
his  sally  and  apologizes  to  Lord  Scrope. 

In  a  few  days  Berkshire,  on  submission  to  Scrope, 
regains  his  freedom,  and  returns  to  his  seat ;  making  for 
the  upright  Chancellor  one  vindictive  enemy  the  more. 

MM.  2.  13.  pree  from  the  personal  malevolence  and  from  the 
virtuous  starts  which  harass  Coke,  bent  on  pleasing  his 
great  patroness  and  on  winning  a  rich  reward,  Cranfield 
goes  straight  and  swift  to  the  point ;  attacking  Bacon, 
Montagu,  and  Yelverton  by  name,  and  proclaiming  that 
he  does  so  from  a  sense  of  duty  to  the  King.  Some  one 
speaks  of  abuses  in  the  Courts  of  Wards.  Craufield 
springs  to  his  feet,  and  with  brazen  brow  admits  the 
existence  of  abuses  hi  his  court,  but  impudently  declares 
that  the  corruptions  of  the  Court  of  Chancery  far  exceed 
the  corruptions  in  the  Court  of  Wards. 

14.  Time  has  now  come  for  the  Villiers  faction  to  show 

13.  Com.  Jour.,  i.  525,  535;  Locke  to  Carleton,  Mar.  3,  1621,  S.  P.  0. 


BUCKINGHAM'S  TREACHERY.  329 

their  game.  While  Cranfield  and  Churchill  have  been  Xm.  14. 
hunting  the  dens  of  London  for  accusations  against  the 
Chancellor,  Buckingham  has  been  frequent  in  his  calls  Mar  2 
at  York  House.  Bacon  is  sick  and  nigh  to  death.  Pains 
rack  his  head,  and  gout  torments  his  feet.  Yet  up  to  the 
llth  of  March  he  continues  to  meet  the  Council,  sitting 
face  to  face  with  Coke  and  Craufield,  who  watch  his 
looks  and  weigh  his  words  with  all  the  vigilance  of 
spite.  At  length  the  treachery  of  Buckingham  grows 
too  plain  for  even  Bacon's  eyes  to  blink.  If  the  House 
of  Commons  is  slow  to  strike,  it  must  be  whipped  into 
the  mood  for  framing  accusations  and  demanding  vic- 
tims. So  Coke  brings  down  a  message  to  the  Commons,  MM.  la 
the  most  extraordinary  and  the  most  criminal  ever  sent 
down  by  a  subservient  House  of  Peers.  Coke  tells  the 
burgesses  that  the  King  is  pleased  with  what  they  have 
done  and  what  they  are  doing ;  that  the  King  advises 
them  to  strike  while  the  iron  is  hot,  not  to  rest  content 
with  shadows,  but  to  demand  real  sacrifices.  He  tells 
them,  too,  that  Buckingham  has  fallen  in  love  with  Par- 
liaments ;  that  he  urges  them  to  go  on,  and  gives  up 
his  brother,  a  partner  with  Mompesson,  to  their  wrath. 
No  one  mistakes  the  drift  and  scope  of  these  words. 
Up  to  the  date  of  this  extraordinary  and  wicked  speech, 
no  one  has  breathed  a  word  against  Bacon's  fame. 
Chancery,  not  the  Chancellor,  has  been  in  fault.  Now 
the  plot  breaks. 

14.  Council  Reg.,  Mar.  11,  1621;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  552,  555;  Lords' Jour.,  iii. 
42,  50. 


330  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIII.  14.      Two  days  after  Coke's  message,  Sir  Robert  Phillips, 

chairman  of  the  committee,  informs  the  House  that  two 
1621. 
Mar.  13.  witnesses,  Kit  Aubrey  and  Edward  Egerton,  are  ready 

to  make  complaints  against  the  Lord  Chancellor.  These 
men  come  up  to  the  bar  and  tell  their  tale. 

Aubrey  having  a  suit  in  Chancery  against  Sir  William 
Brounker,  says  he  was  advised  by  his  counsel  to  send 
a  present  of  a  hundred  pounds  to  the  court ;  which 
money  he  paid  to  Sir  George  Hastings,  who  thanked 
him  for  it  in  his  master's  name,  and  wished  him  better 
speed  in  his  suit.  Egerton,  feeling  grateful  to  the  Lord 
Chancellor  for  a  service  done  to  him  while  Bacon  was 
Attorney-General,  sent  him,  on  his  going  to  live  at  York 
House,  through  the  hands  of  Sir  George  Hastings  and 
Sir  Richard  Young,  a  basin  and  ewer,  together  with  a 
purse  of  four  hundred  pounds. 

Each  complains  that,  though  he  paid  his  money,  he 
took  nothing  by  his  gift. 

15.  Such  charges  against  the  Lord  Chancellor  are  in 
the  last  degree  frivolous.  Fees  and  gifts  like  Aubrey's 
and  Egerton's  are  common  as  sun  and  rain.  A  barris- 
.ter  or  a  judge,  set  apart  from  the  world,  with  no  sal- 
ary from  the  State,  receives,  as  a  rector  or  a  prelate 
might  receive  in  his  day  of  furnishing  or  feasting,  aid 
from  the  public  and  from  his  friends.  Indeed,  the 

15.  Goodman's  Memoirs,  i.  296-6;  A  Selection  of  the  Proceedings  of  the 
House  of  Commons  against  the  Lord  Verulam,  Lord  Chancellor  of  England, 
Mar.  15,  17,  19,  1621;  Com.  Jour.,  i.  552-563. 


CHARGES   OF  BRIBERY.  331 

higher  clergy  growl  that  the  great  lawyers  get  a  larger  Xm.  15. 
share  of  this  help  in  need  than  the  zealous  servants  of 
God.      Bishop   Goodman  has   a   curious    paragraph  in    MJ 
point :  — 

"  I  did  once  intend,"  he  says,  "  to  have  built  a  church ; 
and  a  lawyer  in  my  neighborhood  did  intend  to  build 
himself  a  fair  house,  as  afterward  he  did.  One  sent 
unto  him  to  desire  him  to  accept  from  him  all  his  tim- 
ber ;  another  sent  unto  him  to  desire  him  that  he  might 
supply  him  with  all  the  iron  that  he  spent  about  his 
house.  These  men  had  great  woods  and  iron-mills  of 
their  own.  The  country  desired  him  to  accept  of  their 
carriage.  What  reason  had  this  man  not  to  build  ? 
Truly  I  think  he  paid  very  little  but  the  workmen's 
wages.  Whereas,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  building  of 
my  church,  where  it  was  so  necesssary,  for  without  the 
church  they  had  not  God's  service,  and  no  church  was 
near  them  for  nearly  four  or  five  miles,  truly  I  could 
not  get  the  contribution  of  one  farthing.  Lord  !  how 
are  the  times  altered  !  It  was  not  so  when  St.  Paul's 
Church  in  London  and  other  cathedrals  were  built. 
God's  will  be  done  !  " 

When  Bacon  got  the  Seals  his  friends  and  admirers 
clothed  York  House  for  him  with  plate,  arras,  furniture, 
and  pictures  ;  some  sending  books,  some  money,  some 
cups  of  silver  and  gold.  In  the  crowd  of  presents  came 
Egerton's  ewer  and  purse  ;  came  as  an  expression  of 
gratitude  and  friendship.  No  reference  was  made  when 
they  were  given  to  any  future  act ;  nor  had  the  Chan- 


332  FRANCIS   BACON. 

xni.  15.  cellor   any  knowledge   of   Egerton's    having  a   suit   in 
court.     These  facts  are  stated  in  the  House  by  Sir  Rich- 

1621. 
March.      ard   Young. 

In  Aubrey's  case  it  is  clear  that  the  fee  was  paid  in  the 
usual  way  ;  openly  paid  ;  paid  by  advice  of  his  own  coun- 
sel ;  paid  to  the  proper  officer  of  the  court.  It  is  no  less 
clear  that  the  Lord  Chancellor  could  have  no  special  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  this  payment.  He  does  not  keep  the 
accounts  of  his  court.  Hastings  tells  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  though  he  paid  in  Aubrey's  money  he  never 
mentioned  to  the  Chancellor  Aubrey's  name.  The  truth 
of  this  story  is  confirmed  in  a  singular  way.  When 
Bacon,  on  his  sick  couch,  first  hears  of  this  payment,  by 
Aubrey  of  a  hundred  pounds,  he  pronounces  it  a  lie,  and 
declares  that  he  shall  deny  it  on  his  honor  before  the 
world.  He  is  not  aware  that  it  was  paid  to  his  clerk. 

16.  Such  charges  are  too  flimsy  to  stand  alone.  Ex- 
cept the  tools  of  Coke,  of  Cranfield,  and  of  Buckingham, 
men  who  have  received  their  cue,  and  the  herd  who, 
without  opinions  of  their  own,  are  ever  to  be  found  on 
the  stronger  side,  no  one  in  the  House  of  Commons  pre- 
tends to  believe  that  such  facts  establish  a  case  against 
the  Lord  Chancellor,  fit  to  be  sent  before  the  House  of 
Lords.  Heneage  Finch,  Recorder  of  London,  next  to 
Coke  himself  the  most  learned  jurist  in  the  house,  de- 
clares that  the  evidence  brought  in  support  of  the  accusa- 
tion frees  the  Lord  Chancellor  from  blame. 

16.  A  Collection  of  the  Proceedings,  &c.,  Mar.  17, 1621. 


PROGRESS   OF   THE   PLOT.  333 

17.  Churchill  now  comes  up.  Meautys  protests  that  a  XIH.  17. 
dismissed  servant,  an  extortioner,  a  forger,  with  no  hope 
of  escaping  pillories  and  jails  except  by  lies  against  the  ^  ^ 
Chancellor,  shall  not  be  heard  against  his  lord.  But 
Coke  and  Phillips  get  him  sent,  together  with  a  wretch 
named  Keeling,  a  low  solicitor,  a  partner  in  Churchill's 
villanies,  to  the  committee,  which  comprises  the  Chancel- 
lor's most  eager  foes.  In  secret,  and  without  cross-exam- 
ination, Churchill  and  Keeling  tell  their  tales,  and  the 
hostile  members  of  the  committee  frame  their  grand  in- 
dictment, charging  Bacon  with  bribery  and  fraud. 

The  cases  on  which  they  count  are  in  number  twenty- 
two.  It  is  amazing  they  should  be  no  more.  In  his  four 
years  of  Chancery  business,  Bacon  has  pronounced  about 
seven  thousand  verdicts ;  each  verdict  must  have  hurt 
some  man  in  fame  or  purse  ;  must,  by  a  law  of  nature, 
have  seemed  to  the  losing  man  unjust.  Does  any  one 
love  the  judge  who  has  pronounced  against  him  ?  Would 
the  most  upright  judge  feel  easy  on  having  to  put  his 
honor  or  estate  at  the  mercy  of  a  jury,  each  of  whom 
had  been  mulcted  in  his  court  ?  Yet  out  of  these  seven 
thousand  sufferers,  the  skill  of  Coke,  and  the  roguery  of 
Churchill  can  only  frame  an  accusation  of  twenty-two 
particulars,  not  one  of  them  to  the  point ! 

18.  At   first    the   Chancellor    only   smiles.      Charges 

17.  A  Collection  of  the  Proceedings,  &c.,  Mar.  20,  21,  1621;  Com.  Jour.,  i. 
564. 

IS.  Council  Reg.,  Dec.  30,  1617,  Mar.  17,  27,  1618,  June  19,  1619,  Jan.  20, 
1620 ;  Bacon  to  Buckingham,  in  Montagu,  33. 


334  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XIII.  18.  against  the  court  over  which  he  sits  he  expects  to  hear, 
and  will  be  glad  to  consider ;  charges  against  himself 
1*^*20.  Personally  he  knows  must  be  malignant,  and  he  sup- 
poses must  be  vain.  The  Council  guards  the  high  place 
he  fills  with  as  much  care  as  it  guards  the  Crown. 
The  fate  of  Lord  Clifford  and  Lady  Blount  is  before 
the  slanderer's  eye  ;  and  a  word  from  the  King  or 
from  Buckingham  would  send  Churchill  to  be  whipped 
through  Cheap  and  fettered  in  the  Clink.  When  he 
finds  the  case  go  on,  he  expresses  to  Buckingham  his 
indignation  at  the  course  of  Coke  :  "  Job  himself,  or 
whoever  was  the  justest  judge,"  he  writes,  "  by  such 
hunting  of  matters  against  him  as  hath  been  used 
against  me,  may  for  a  time  seem  foul.  If  this  is  to 
be  a  Chancellor,  I  think  if  the  Great  Seal  lay  upon 
Hounslow  Heath,  nobody  would  take  it  up."  But  he 
is  not  alarmed.  "  I  know  I  have  clean  hands  and  a 
clean  heart." 

19.  As  the  case  proceeds,  —  as  Ley,  and  Coke,  and 
Cranfield,  all  the  tools  of  Lady  Buckingham,  take  part 
in  it,  —  he  begins  at  length  to  perceive  the  bearing  of 
the  charge  and  the  purpose  of  his  enemies.  The  facts 
of  the  accusation  are  nothing,  the  fact  of  it  is  much. 
As  he  lies  sick  at  York  House,  or  at  Gorhambury,  hear- 
ing through  his  friend  Meautys  of  the  moil  and  worry 
about  him  in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  jots  on  loose 
scraps  of  paper  at  his  side  his  answers  and  remarks. 

19.  Bacon  Memoranda,  Lambeth  MSS.  936,  fol.  146. 


HIS   DECLARATION   OF  INNOCENCE.  335 

These   scraps  of  paper  are  at  Lambeth  Palace.     Their  XIII.  19. 
contents  are  embodied  in  letters  to  Buckingham,  to  the 
House  of  Lords,  and  to  the  King :  yet  they  possess  an    MJ 
original  and  abiding  interest  in  their  first  rude  drafts  ; 
a  stamp  of  honesty  and  sincerity  which  the  eye  cannot 
help  but  see  or   the   heart  but  feel.     On  one  of  these 
sheets   he  writes  :  — 

"  There  be  three  degrees  or  cases,  as  I  conceive,  of 
gifts  or  rewards  given  to  a  judge. 

"  The  first  is,  —  of  bargain,  contract,  or  promise  of 
reward,  pendente  lite.  And  this  is  properly  called  ve- 
nalis  sentential,  or  baratria,  or  corruptelae  munerum. 
And  of  this  my  heart  tells  me  I  am  innocent ;  that  I 
had  no  bribe  or  reward  in  my  eye  or  thought  when  I 
pronounced  any  sentence  or  order. 

"  The  second  is,  —  a  neglect  in  the  judge  to  inform 
himself  whether  the  cause  be  fully  at  an  end  or  no 
what  time  he  receives  the  gift,  but  takes  it  upon  the 
credit  of  the  party  that  all  is  done,  or  otherwise  omits 
to  inquire. 

"And  the  third  is, — when  it  is  received,  sine  fraude, 
after  the  cause  is  ended ;  which,  it  seems,  by  the  opin- 
ions of  the  civilians,  is  no  offence." 

Only  the  first  of  these  three  cases,  a  contract  to  de- 
feat justice  for  a  personal  gain,  implies  moral  guilt  or 
invites  legal  censure. 

Bacon  adds :  — 

"  IW  the  first,  I  take  myself  to  be  as  innocent  as 
any  babe  born  on  St.  Innocent's  day  in  my  heart. 


3S6  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XIII.  19.      "  For  the  second,  I  doubt  in  some  particulars  I  may 

be  faulty. 
March.        "  And  for  the  last,  I  conceive  it  to  be  no  fault." 

20.  The  evidence  produced  against  him,  as  Heneage 
Finch  has  told  the  House  of  Commons,  proves  his  case 
and  frees  him  from  blame.  Of  the  twenty-two  charges 
of  corruption,  three  are  debts,  —  Compton's,  Peacock's, 
and  Vanlore's  :  two  of  these,  Compton's  and  Vanlore's, 
debts  on  bond  and  interest.  Any  man  who  borrows 
money  may  be  as  justly  charged  with  taking  bribes. 
One  case,  that  of  the  London  Companies,  is  an  arbitra- 
tion, not  a  suit  in  law.  Even  Cranfield,  though  bred  in 
the  city,  cannot  call  their  fee  a  bribe.  Smithwick's  gift, 
being  found  irregular,  has  been  sent  back.  Thirteen 
cases  —  those  of  Young,  Wroth,  Hody,  Barker,  Monk, 
Trevor,  Scott,  Fisher,  Lenthal,  Dunch,  Montagu,  Rus- 
well,  and  the  Frenchmen  —  are  of  daily  practice  in  every 
court  of  law.  They  fall  under  Bacon's  third  list,  com- 
mon fees,  paid  in  the  usual  way,  paid  after  judgment 
has  been  given.  Kennedy's  present  of  a  cabinet  for 
York  House  has  never  been  accepted,  the  Chancellor 
hearing  that  the  artisan  who  made  it  has  not  been  paid. 
Reynell,  an  old  neighbor  and  friend,  gave  him  two  hun- 
dred pounds  towards  furnishing  York  House,  and  sent 
him  a  ring  on  New  Year's  day.  Everybody  gives  rings, 
everybody  takes  rings,  on  a  New  Year's  day.  The  gift 

20.  A  Collection  of  the  Proceedings,  &c.,  Mar.  20,  21,  1621;  Com.  Jonr., 
i.  663,  578. 


EVIDENCE  AGAINST   HIM.  337 

of  five  hundred  pounds  from  Sir  Ralph  Hornsby  was  XIII.  20. 
made  after  a  judgment,  though,  as  afterwards  appeared, 
while  a  second,  much  inferior  cause,  was  still  in  hearing. 
The  gift  was  openly  made,  not  to  the  Chancellor,  but 
to  the  officer  of  his  court.  The  last  case  is  that  of  Lady 
Wharton  ;  the  only  one  that  presents  an  unusual  feature. 
Lady  Wharton,  it  seems,  brought  her  presents  to  the 
Chancellor  herself ;  yet  even  her  gifts  were  openly  made, 
in  the  presence  of  the  proper  officer  and  his  clerk. 
Churchill  admits  being  present  in  the  room  when  Lady 
Wharton  left  her  purse  ;  Gardner,  Keeling's  clerk,  asserts 
that  he  was  present  when  she  brought  the  two  hundred 
pounds.  Even  Coke  is  staggered  by  proofs  which  prove 
so  much  ;  for  who  in  his  senses  can  suppose  that  the 
Lord  Chancellor  would  have  done  an  act  known  to  be 
illegal  and  immoral  hi  the  company  of  a  registrar  and 
a  clerk  ? 

It  is  clear  that  a  thing  which  Bacon  did  under  the 
eyes  of  Gardner  and  Churchill  must  hare  been  in  his 
mind  customary  and  right. 

It  is  no  less  clear  that  if  Bacon  'had  done  wrong, 
knowing  it  to  be  wrong,  he  would  never  have  braved 
exposure  of  his  fraud  by  turning  Churchill  into  the 
streets. 

Thus  after  the  most  rigorous  and  vindictive  scrutiny 
into  his  official  acts,  and  into  the  official  acts  of  his  ser- 
vants, not  a  single  fee  or  remembrance  traced  to  the 
Chancellor  can,  by  any  fair  construction,  be  called  a 
bribe.  Not  one  appears  to  have  been  given  on  a  promise ; 
15  v 


338  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIII. 20.  not  one  appears  to  have  been  given  in  secret;   not  one 
is  alleged  to  have  corrupted  justice. 

1621. 

March. 

21.  Very  few  knights  or  burgesses  take  part  in  the 
debate :  on  one  side  Cranfield,  Coke,  and  Phillips ;  on  the 
other  side  Sackville,  Meautys,  and  Heneage  Finch,  make 
nearly  all  the  list.  This  charge  against  Bacon  is  re- 
garded by  citizens  and  country  gentlemen  as  a  mere 
theme  for  lawyers,  —  a  charge  of  technical  corruption 
more  than  of  moral  guilt.  They  may  very  well  stand 
aloof  when  Coke  and  Finch,  the  two  most  eminent 
lawyers  in  the  House,  express  on  it  the  most  diverse 
views.  Coke  construes  every  fee  into  a  bribe ;  Finch 
denies  that  any  fee  can  be  called  a  bribe  unless  it  can 
be  shown  to  have  been  taken  as  part  of  a  contract  to 
pervert  justice.  Finch  does  not  admit  of  Bacon's  three 
distinctions, — he  only  knows  of  fees  and  bribes.  A  fee 
paid  at  an  improper  time  is  not  a  bribe ;  for  how,  he 
asks,  can  a  judge  retain  in  his  recollection  the  name  of 
every  suitor  in  his  court  ?  The  House  consents  to  let 
the  case  go  up  to  the  Lords,  though  as  an  inquiry,  not 
as  an  impeachment.  If  they  wish  the  system  of  Fees 
amended,  as  they  wish  that  of  Patents,  of  Protections, 
of  Pardons,  of  Personal  Service,  or  of  Wards  and  Liveries 
amended,  they  do  not  load  the  Chancellor  with  a  personal 
charge.  Otherwise  Coke.  They  want  to  cleanse  the 
court ;  he  to  destroy  the  judge.  They  see  a  grievance 
in  the  Chancery,  as  they  see  one  in  the  Rolls,  the  Wards, 

21.  Com.  Jour.,  i.  564-67;  Proceedings,  &c.,  Mar.  20,  21,  1621. 


INQUIRY  IN   THE   LORDS.  339 


and  the  King's  Bench  ;  he  finds  the  most  noxious  griev-  Xm.21. 
ance  in   the   Lord   Viscount  St.  Albans,  holder   of  the 
Great  Seal.  162L 


22.  To  drag  the  House  of  Lords  on  the  way  down 
which  they  have  thus  far  lured  the  House  of  Commons, 
the  gang  of  conspirators   procure  from   James  a  com- 
mission for  Sir  James  Ley  to  execute  the  office  of  Lord 
Chancellor.      Though   not   a   peer,   such  a   commission 
will  make  Ley  the  leader  and  spokesman  of  the  peers. 
Seeing  what  means   are    used   against   him,   Bacon    is 
warned  by  a  friend  to  look  about  him.     He  calmly  an- 
swers, "  I  look  above." 

23.  He  knows  now  that  his  ruin  is  meant,  —  that  the 
peers  who  are  to  try  him  will   pronounce  as  Bucking- 
ham points.      Two  or  three  learned,  independent  men 
may   protest    by   their  votes  or   absence    against   these 
scandalous    proceedings  ;    the    majority,    who    wish    to 
dance    at  Whitehall,  —  to    enjoy   the   favorite's    smiles 
and  partake   the    gifts   of   his  master,  —  will   have   to 
speak  and  act  under  the  eyes  of  Prince  Charles,  who 
is  not  so  much  Buckingham's  partisan  as  his  slave.     It 
is   with  Ley  and  Williams   not  a  question   of   Bacon's 
guilt  so  much  as  of  his  place.     But  his  own  courtesy 
and  generosity  blind  him   to  the  vile  motives  of   his 
persecutors.      In   the   loose   sheets   at  his  bedside,  and 
afterwards  in  letters  to  the  King,  he  writes  :  — 

22.  Lords'  Jour.,  iii.  61. 

23.  Bacon  to  James,  Jfer.  25,  1621 ;  llontagu,  999. 


March. 


340  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XUI.  23.      "  When  I  enter  into  myself,  I  find  not  the  materials  of 

such  a  tempest  as  is  now  come  upon  me.     I  have  been 
1621. 
March     never   author   of  any  immoderate   counsel,   but   always 

desired  to  have  things  carried  suavibus  modis.  I  have 
been  no  avaricious  oppressor  of  the  people.  I  have  been 
no  haughty,  intolerable,  or  hateful  man  in  my  conver- 
sation or  carriage.  I  have  inherited  no  hatred  from  my 
father  ;  but  am  a  good  patriot  born.  Whence  should 
this  be  ?  " 

That  eye,  so  quick  to  see  the  power  of  truth,  the 
beauty  of  nature,  cannot  see  that  it  is  crime  enough 
that  he  has  vexed  Lady  Buckingham  by  his  independ- 
ence, and  that  Williams  wants  his  place. 

Yet,  knowing  his  own  heart,  he  can  say  with  honest 
pride :  — 

"  I  praise  God  for  it,  I  never  took  penny  for  any  bene- 
fice or  ecclesiastical  living. 

"  I  never  took  penny  for  releasing  anything  I  stopped 
at  the  Seal. 

"  I  never  took  penny  for  any  commission,  or  things  of 
that  nature. 

"I  never  shared  with  any  reward  for  any  second  or 
inferior  profit." 

Mar  19.  24.  Ley  presides  over  the  peers.  On  the  House  re- 
solving themselves  into  committee,  a  preliminary  fight 
takes  place,  which  shows  the  strength  of  this  Villiers 
gang.  When  the  House  is  in  committee,  it  is  the  rule 

24.  Lords'  Jour.,  in.  55;  Lambeth  MSS.  936,  fol.  146. 


URGED   BY   THE   KING   TO   SUBMIT.  341 

that  the  Lord  Chancellor  shall  move  to  his  place,  and  sit  XIII.  24. 
as  a  simple  peer.     Ley,  therefore,  drops  from  the  wool- 
sack to  the  back  benches,  where  he  must  sit,  while  the    ^ 
Lords  are  in  committee,  as  a  mere  assistant,  without  a 
vote.     His  friends  propose  that  he  shall  resume  the  chair, 
even  while  the  House  is  in  committee ;  and  after  a  strong 
opposition,  though  the  Prince  and  Buckingham  are  pres- 
ent to  support  their  friends,  these  last  carry  their  pro- 
posal, and  Ley  resumes  the  chair.     This  vote  decides 
Bacon's  fate. 

In  a  private  interview  James  now  urges  the  Chancellor 
to  trust  in  him ;  to  offer  no  defence  ;  to  submit  himself  to 
the  peers  ;  to  trust  his  honor  and  his  safety  to  the  Crown. 
It  is  only  too  easy  to  divine  the  reasons  which  weigh  with 
Bacon  to  intrust  his  fortunes  to  the  King.  He  is  sick. 
He  is  surrounded  by  enemies.  No  man  has  power  to  help 
him,  save  the  sovereign.  He  is  weary  of  greatness.  Age 
is  approaching.  In  his  illness  he  has  learned  to  think 
more  of  heaven  and  less  of  the  world.  His  nobler  tasks 
are  incomplete.  He  has  the  Seals,  and  the  delights  of 
power  begin  to  pall.  To  resist  the  King's  advice  is  to 
provoke  the  fate  of  Yelverton,  still  an  obstinate  prisoner 
in  the  Tower.  Nor  can  he  say  that  these  complaints 
against  the  courts  of  law,  against  the  Court  of  Chancery, 
are  untimely  or  unjust.  So  far  as  they  attack  the  court, 
and  not  the  judge,  they  are  in  the  spirit  of  all  his  writings 
and  of  all  his  votes.  In  his  soul,  he  can  find  no  fault 
with  the  House  of  Commons,  though  the  accidents  of 
time  and  the  machinations  of  powerful  enemies  have 


342  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIII.  24.  made  him,  the  Reformer,  a  sacrifice  to  a  false  cry  for 

reform. 
1621. 

April.  28.  25.  Iii  answer  to  a  statement  sent  to  him  from  the 
Lords,  he  confesses,  as  the  King  has  begged  him  to  con- 
fess, to  the  receipt  of  the  several  fees  and  gifts,  and  to  a 
trust  in  the  servants  of  his  court,  often  most  unwise. 
Most  of  the  cases  fall  under  his  third  division  ;  two  or 
three  under  his  second ;  none  under  his  first.  Beyond 
this  point  his  confession  and  submission  do  not  run.  If 
he  takes  to  himself  some  share  of  blame,  he  takes  to  him- 
self no  share  of  guilt.  He  pleads  guilty  to  carelessness, 
not  to  crime.  But  he  points  out,  too,  that  all  the  irregu- 
larities found  in  his  court  occurred  when  he  was  new  in 
office,  strange  to  his  clerks  and 'registrars,  overwhelmed 
with  arrears  of  work.  The  very  last  of  them  is  two  years 
old.  For  the  latter  half  of  his  reign  as  Chancellor,  the 
vindictive  inquisition  of  his  enemies,  aided  by  the  treach- 
ery of  his  servants,  has  not  been  able  to  detect  in  his 
administration  of  justice  a  fault,  much  less  a  crime. 

May  3.  26.  The  peers  condemn.  The  Villiers  faction  move 
to  suspend  during  life  his  titles  of  nobility.  Abbott 
and  the  bench  of  bishops  oppose  this  motion.  Fine, 
imprisonment,  loss  of  office,  are  the  forms  of  a  political 
sentence ;  degradation  from  nobility  is  a  moral  censure. 
One  is  only  loss  of  power,  the  other  is  loss  of  honor.  A 

25.  Lords'  Jour.,  iii.  99,  100. 

26.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  May  2,  5,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Lords'  Jour.,  iii.  105. 


LEY   DELIVERS   SENTENCE.  343 

majority  of  two  defeats  this  scheme  of  adding  infamy  to 
punishment.  The  second  motion  passes.  Ley  has  the 
satisfaction  of  declaring  to  his  partisans  in  the  House  of 
Peers  that  the  greatest  man  who  ever  sat  upon  its  benches 
is  ignominiously  expelled,  deprived  of  the  Seals,  fined 
forty  thousand  pounds,  and  cast  into  the  Tower. 


344  FRANCIS  BACON. 


CHAPTER     XIV. 

AFTER    SENTENCE. 

XIV.  1.  1.  BACON  makes  no  complaint.  He  feels  that  he  is 
—  made  a  sacrifice,  an  innocent  sacrifice,  for  what  he  hopes 
may  turn  out  to  be  the  public  good.  The  court  is  cor- 
rupt, though  the  judge  is  pure.  In  a  few  brave  words  he 
states  the  case  :  "  I  was  the  justest  judge  that  was  in 
England  these  fifty  years,  but  it  was  the  justest  censure 
that  was  in  Parliament  these  two  hundred  years." 

2.  With  the  sentence  on  Lord  St.  Albans  ends  the 
ministerial  passion  for  reform.  No  further  search  is 
made  into  Chancery  iniquities,  nor  does  the  House  re- 
member to  proceed  with  its  inquiry  into  the  evil  prac- 
tices of  the  King's  Bench  and  the  Court  of  Wards.  The 
Crown  makes  a  feeble  effort  of  investigation,  but  only, 
like  the  House  of  Commons,  to  let  the  question  drop. 
If  the  new  Chancellor  names  a  commission  to  report 
on  Fees,  nothing  comes  of  their  report.  All  that  is 
irregular  in  the  mode  of  conducting  legal  business  grows 


1.  Apophthegms,  Spedding's  Works  of  Bacon,  vii.  179. 

2.  Statutes  of  the  Realm,  iv.  1208 ;  Welden,  130 ;  King's  Proclamation,  July 
10,  1621 ;  Proposals  concerning  the  Chancery,  1650. 


DIVISION   OF   SPOILS.  345 


to  be  more  irregular.     Instead  of  being  a  court  without  XIV.  2. 
arrears,  it  is  soon  blocked  up  with  clients.     The  new  men 
invent  new  methods  of  extortion. 

May. 

With  the  fall  of  the  Reformer  ends  the  immediate  pros- 
pect of  reform.  The  very  topic  is  adjourned  to  the  times 
of  Naseby  and  Dunbar. 

3.  All  the  agents  of  this  memorable  persecution  get  July. 
their  share  of  spoil,  except  the  man  to  whose  invention 
and  persistence  its  success  is  due.  Coke  is  in  disgrace  ; 
for  the  match  between  his  daughter  and  Sir  John  Villiers, 
though  crowned  with  a  peerage,  has  turned  out  a  dismal 
work.  Ley,  if  he  misses  the  Seals,  which  Lady  Bucking- 
ham reserves  for  the  one  nearer  and  dearer,  obtains  a  wife, 
with  the  prospect  of  promotion  and  a  peerage,  for  which 
indeed  he  has  not  long  to  wait.  Churchill  goes  back  to 
the  trust  which  he  so  shamefully  abused.  Williams  steps 
into  the  Privy  Council  and  receives  the  Seals.  "  I  should 
have  known  my  successor,"  says  Bacon,  on  receiving  this 
extraordinary  news.  Some  of  the  great  peers  demur 
to  the  nomination  of  such  a  fellow  as  Williams  to  the 
presidency  of  their  lordships'  house ;  and  the  King  only 
quells  this  clamor  of  the  Howards  and  De  Veres  by 
threatening  them,  if  they  object  to  Williams,  with  the 
nomination  of  Richard  Neile.  To  give  dignity  to  Lady 
Buckingham's  friend,  he  is  named  successor  to  Dr.  Moun- 

3.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  June  23,  July  14,  Oct.  13,  Nov.  10, 1621,  S.  P.  0.; 
Locke  to  Carleton,  Sept.  29,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Lords'  Jour.,  iii.  42,  81;  Paul  to 
Buckingham,  July  12,  1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Sign  Manuals,  xii.  No.  66;  Grant  Book, 
309 ;  Doquet,  Sept.  12,  1622. 

15  « 


346  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIV.  3.  tain  in  the  see  of  Lincoln.      Cranfield's  merits  demand 
and  receive  no  less  magnificent  a  prize. 

1621. 

July_  Some  of  the  Villiers  gang  proposed  to  attack  Mon- 
tagu, the  Lord  Treasurer,  while  their  friends  were  push- 
ing the  charge  against  Bacon.  Coke  hinted  a  fault  be- 
fore the  House  of  Peers,  while  Sir  George  Paul,  one  of 
Lady  Buckingham's  crew,  whose  zeal  had  been  inflamed 
by  the  gift  of  a  lucrative  office  under  Ley,  petitioned  the 
House  of  Commons  against  him.  But  there  was  danger 
in  attempting  too  much  ;  and  a  word  from  Buckingham 
put  a  stop  to  the  indiscreet  initiative  of  Paul,  his  new 
clerk  of  the  King's  Bench.  The  attack  is  but  deferred. 
When  Bacon  is  in  the  Tower,  Cranfield,  now  a  baron, 
opens  his  siege  against  the  Treasury.  Montagu  is  rich 
and  timid,  and  Cranfield  offers  him  no  choice  but  that  of 
a  cutthroat  on  Stamford  Hill,  —  Your  office  or  your  life ! 
Where  Bacon  has  gone  down  Montagu  cannot  hope  to 
stand.  If  he  will  allow  himself  to  be  robbed  of  a  post 
which  has  cost  him  twenty  thousand  pounds,  and  of 
places  about  it  which  have  cost  his  kinsmen  and  servants 
twenty  thousand  pounds  more,  the  victorious  party  prom- 
ise to  secure  him  the  undisturbed  enjoyment  of  his  peer- 
sept.  29.  age,  and  to  cover  the  shame  of  his  fall  by  reviving  for 
him  the  old  office  of  President  of  the  Council.  Mon- 
tagu succumbs.  Cranfield  gets  the  White  Staff,  and, 
after  the  birth  of  a  son,  the  Earldom  of  Middlesex. 

1622. 

March         4.  These  ends  of  the  conspiracy  attained,  the  prose- 

4.  Meautys  to  Bacon,  Mar.  3,  1622,  Lambeth  MSS.  936;  Spedding's  Note, 
i.  9;  Rushworth's  Historical  Collections,  i.  31. 


HIS   FINE  REMITTED.  347 

cution  of  Bacon,  the  heat  of  the  Government  for  reform,  XIV.  4. 
dies   off.      Buckingham   has   no   implacable   resentment 
against  the  great  Chancellor ;  he  only  wanted  the  Mace 

March. 

and  Seals.  When  he  has  got  these  baubles  into  the 
hands  of  Williams,  he  contimies  to  express,  and  probably 
to  feel,  the  warmest  affection  for  Bacon's  person,  the 
most  unbounded  admiration  for  his  parts.  Indeed,  he 
wishes  to  be  thought  the  friend  of  Lord  St.  Albans,  as 
Greville  was  the  friend  of  Sir  Philip  Sydney.  Meautys, 
the  faithful  henchman,  in  his  notes  to  his  master, 
hints  at  something  savoring  of  an  intrigue  to  pro- 
cure from  him  confessions  of  friendship  and  obliga- 
tion to  the  powerful  favorite.  Bacon's  situation  grows 
less  painful;  his  fine  is  remitted,  his  freedom  restored. 
An  attempt  to  overthrow  some  of  his  judgments  fails. 
Of  the  thousands  of  decisions  pronounced  by  him  in 
the  Court  of  Chancery  not  one  is  reversed. 

5.  Among  his  books  and  his  experiments,  with  his 
horse  and  his  game  of  bowls,  he  soon  in  the  country  air 
recovers  his  health,  and  with  his  health  his  spirits  and 
his  wit.  He  enriches  the  Essays  with  a  thousand  ex- 
quisite touches.  When  the  Jew,  Gondomar,  recalled 
to  Spain  by  an  order  from  thei  King,  sends  to  wish  Bacon 
a  good  Easter,  the  wit  replies,  "  Tell  the  Count  I  return 
him  the  compliment  and  wish  him  a  good  Passover." 
Montagu  comes  to  Gorhambury  to  complain  how  ill  he 

5.  Apophthegms,  in  Spedding's  Bacon,  vii.  181 ;  Bacon  to  James,  Mar.  25, 1623 ; 
Lambeth  MSS.  936 ;  Bacon  to  Conway,  Mar.  25,  1623,  S.  P.  0. 


348  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XIV.  5.  has  been  used  by  the  Yilliers  faction  ;  "  Why,  my  Lord," 
says  Bacon,  "  they  have  made  me  an  example  and  you 

1622. 

March.  a  president."  Poor  in  everything  but  his  good  spirits 
and  his  capacity  for  work,  he  toils  at  his  History  of 
Henry  the  Seventh,  at  the  new  edition  of  his  Advance- 
ment of  Learning,  at  his  Advertisement  touching  a  Holy 

1623.  War.  These  writings,  and  the  works  which  have  gone 
before  them,  extend  his  fame  throughout  Europe.  But 
his  debts  weigh  on  him.  He  is  anxious  for  work,  even 
for  work  of  the  humblest  kind.  In  1623  Thomas  Mur- 
ray, secretary  to  Prince  Charles,  and  Provost  of  Eton, 
falls  sick  and  is  like  to  die.  Bacon  offers  himself  as  a 
candidate.  Sir  William  Beecher,  clerk  of  the  Privy 
Council,  a  creature  of  Villiers,  and  Sir  Henry  Wotton, 
poet,  wit,  ambassador,  are  his  opponents.  Beecher  has 
a  promise  from  Buckingham  of  the  succession  to  Mur- 
ray ;  Buckingham  is  away  in  Spain  with  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  fanning  his  face  at  bull-fights,  leering  at  Castiliau 
dames.  Sir  Edward  Conway,  Secretary  of  State,  is  now 
the  immediate  influence  near  the  King ;  and  Bacon, 
who  comes  back  to  London,  to  his  old  lodgings  in  Gray's 
Inn,  writes  to  solicit  his  good-will:  — 

BACON  TO  CONWAY. 

Gray's  Inn,  25th  of  March,  1623. 

GOOD  ME.  SECRETARY, — 

When  you  did  me  the  honor  and  favor  to  visit  me 
you  did  not  only  in  general  terms  express  your  love 
unto  me,  but  as  a  real  friend  asked  me  whether  I  had 


SEEKS   PROVOSTSHIP    OF   ETON.  349 

any  particular  occasion  wherein  I  might  make  use  of  XIV.  5. 
you.  At  that  time  I  had  none ;  now  there  is  one  fallen. 
It  is  that  Mr.  Thomas  Murray,  Provost  of  Eton  (whom 
I  love  very  well),  is  like  to  die.  It  were  a  pretty  cell 
for  my  fortune.  The  college  and  school  I  do  not  doubt 
but  I  shall  make  to  flourish.  His  Majesty,  when  I 
waited  on  him,  took  notice  of  my  wants,  and  said  to  me 
that  as  he  was  a  king  he  would  have  care  of  me.  This 
is  a  thing  somebody  must  have,  and  costs  his  Majesty 
nothing.  I  have  written  two  or  three  words  to  his  Ma- 
jesty, which  I  would  pray  you  to  deliver.  I  have  not 
expressed  this  particular  to  his  Majesty,  but  referred  it 
to  your  relation.  My  most  noble  friend  the  Marquis 
is  now  absent.  Next  to  him  I  could  not  think  of  a 
better  address  than  to  yourself,  as  one  likest  to  put  on 
his  affections. 

I  rest  your  very  affectionate  friend, 

FRANCIS  ST.  ALBANS. 

Conway  supports  the  suit. 

6.  James  allows  of  Bacon's  great  claims.  He  will 
think  of  it  ;  he  even  hopes  to  arrange  it ;  satisfying 
Beecher  with  another  place.  But  Beecher  is  Bucking- 
ham's creature ;  Buckingham  is  away ;  till  he  comes 
back  nothing  can  be  done.  Conway 's  answer  is  in  the 
State  Paper  Office  ;  its  spirit  may  be  guessed  from  the 
following  note  of  Bacon  in  reply  to  it :  — 

G.  IS.icon  to  Conway,  Mar.  29,  1623,  S.  P.  0. ;  Do.,  Mar.  31,  1623,  Lambeth 
MSS.  936. 


350  FRANCIS   BACON. 

IV>  6*  BACON  TO  CONWAY. 

1623. 

Gray's  Inn,  29th  of  March,  1623. 

GOOD  MR.  SECRETARY, — 

I  am  much  comforted  by  your  last  letter,  wherein  I 
find  that  his  Majesty  of  his  great  goodness  vouchsafeth 
to  have  a  care  of  me,  a  man  out  of  sight  and  out  of  use, 
but  yet  his  (as  the  Scripture  sayeth,  "  God  knows  those 
that  are  his").  In  particular,  I  am  very  much  bounden 
to  his  Majesty,  and  I  pray  (Sir)  thank  his  Majesty  most 
humbly  for  it,  that,  notwithstanding  the  former  design- 
rnent  of  Sir  A.  Beecher,  his  Majesty  (as  you  write)  is 
not  out  of  hope  in  due  time  to  accommodate  me  of  this 
cell  and  to  satisfy  that  gentleman  otherwise.  Many  con- 
ditions (no  doubt)  may  be  as  good  for  him,  and  his  years 
may  expect  them.  But  there  will  hardly  fall  (especially 
in  the  spent  hour-glass  of  such  a  life  as  mine)  anything 
so  fit  for  me,  being  a  retreat  to  a  place  of  study  so  near 
London,  and  where  (if  I  sell  my  house  at  Gorhambury, 
as  I  purpose  to  do,  to  put  myself  into  some  convenient 
plenty),  I  may  be  accommodate  of  a  dwelling  for  the 
summer-time.  And,  therefore,  good  Mr.  Secretary,  fur- 
ther this  his  Majesty's  good  intention  by  all  means  if 
the  place  fall.  For  yourself  you  have  obliged  me  much; 
I  will  endeavor  to  deserve  it.  At  best  nobleness  is  never 
lost,  but  rewarded  in  itself.  My  Lord  Marquis  I  know 
will  thank  you.  I  was  looking  over  some  short  papers 
of  mine  touching  usury,  how  to  grind  the  teeth  of  it, 
and  yet  to  make  it  grind  to  his  Majesty's  mill  in  good 


APPLIES  AGAIN  FOR  PROVOSTSHIP.  351 

sort,  without  discontent  or   perturbation  :    if  you  think  XIV.  6. 
good  I  will  perfect  it,  as  I  send  it  to  his  Majesty  as  some 
fruits  of  my  leisure.     But  yet  I  would  not  have  it  come 
as  from  me,  not  from  any  tenderness  in  the  thing,  but 
because  I  know  well  in  the  courts  of  princes  it  is  usual 
non  res,  sed  displicet  auctor.  —  God  keep  you. 
I  rest  your  very  affectionate  friend,  much  obliged, 

FR.  ST.  ALBANS. 

Two  days  later  he  writes  again.  What  a  mournful,  yet 
what  a  manful  tone  !  He  has  sold  York  House,  the  place 
of  his  birth ;  he  must  now  sell  Gorhambury,  the  scene 
of  his  happiest  hours  and  most  splendid  toils.  Yet  how 
inspiring,  in  the  depths  of  sorrow,  to  see  the  great  man 
bear  his  burden  bravely :  no  false  pride  ;  no  arrogant 
remembrance  of  the  Mace,  the  Seals,  the  Privy  Council, 
the  Royal  table  ;  only  a  simple  hope  of  finding  in  his  old 
age  a  sphere  of  duty  in  which  he  can  win  bread  by  honest 
work! 

7.  He  writes  to  the  King :  — 

BACON  TO  JAMES.  MM.  29 

IT  MAY  PLEASE  YOUR  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY,— 
Now  that  my  friend  is  absent  (for  so  I  may  call  him 
still,  since  your  Majesty,  when  I  waited  on  you,  told  me 

7.  Bacon  to  James,  Mar.  29, 1623,  S.  P.  0. ;  Bacon  to  Conway,  April  7, 1628, 
S.  P.  0. 


352  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XIV.  7.  that  fortune  made  no  difference)  your  Majesty  remaineth 

to  me  king  and  master,  and  friend  and  all.     Your  Beads- 
1623. 
Mar.  29.   man,  therefore,  addresseth  himself  to  your  Majesty  for  a 

cell  to  retire  unto.  The  particular  I  have  expressed  to 
my  very  hon.  friend,  Mr.  Sec.  Couway.  This  help  (which 
costs  your  Majesty  nothing)  may  reserve  me  to  do  your 
Majesty  service,  without  being  chargeable  unto  you,  for 
I  will  never  deny  but  my  desire  to  serve  your  Majesty  is 
of  the  nature  of  the  heart,  that  will  be  ultimum  moriens 
with  me.  God  preserve  your  Majesty,  and  send  you  a 
good  return  of  your  treasure  abroad,  which  passeth  your 
Majesty's  Indian  fleet. 

Your  most  humble  and  devoted  servant, 

FRANCIS  ST.  ALBANS. 

Murray  grows   daily  worse.      Bacon  writes   again   to 
Con  way :  — 


April.?.  BACON  TO  CONWAY. 

Gray's  Inn,  7th  of  April,  1623. 

GOOD  MR.  SECRETARY, — 

I  received  right  now  an  advertisement  from  a  friend  of 
mine  who  is  like  to  know  it,  that  Mr.  Murray  is  very  ill 
(and  that,  so  are  the  words  of  his  letter)  not  only  his 
days  but  his  hours  are  numbered.  You  have  put  my 
business  into  a  good  way,  and  (to  tell  you  true)  my  heart 
is  much  upon  this  place,  as  fit  for  me,  and  where  I  may 
do  good.  Therefore,  Sir,  I  pray  you  have  a  special  eye 


DISAPPOINTED   OF  PEOVOSTSHIP.  353 

to  it,  and  I  shall  ever  acknowledge  it  to  you  in  the  best  XIV.  7. 
fashion  that  I  can.     Resting  your  very  affectionate  friend, 

FB.  ST.  ALBANS.        1623 

8.  Murray  dies     Time  passes  on.     Buckingham  still     sept, 
away,  the  King  can  form  no  resolution.     Six  months  later 
the  place  is  still  vacant.     Bacon  writes  again  :  — 


BACON  TO  CONWAY. 

Gray's  Inn,  this  4th  day  of  September,  1623. 

GOOD  MB.  SECKETABY, — 

Let  me,  now  his  Majesty  is  in  sight  of  Eton,  make  my 
most  humble  claim  to  his  Majesty's  gracious  promise  by 
you  signified,  which,  as  I  understand  it,  was,  that  if  Mr. 
Beecher,  who  had  a  promise  upon  my  Lord  of  Bucking- 
ham's score,  might  otherwise  be  satisfied  (which  his 
Majesty  would  endeavor),  I  should  have  my  desire.  Mis- 
take me  not,  as  if  I  expected  this  should  be  done  and 
perfected  till  my  noble,  true  friend  comes  back.  But  I 
pray  refresh  it  only  in  his  Majesty's  memory.  It  were 
strange  if  I  should  not  do  as  much  good  to  the  College  as 
another,  be  it  square  cap  or  round. 

I  always  rest  your  affectionate  friend  and  servant, 

ST.  ALBANS. 

Buckingham  is  adverse  to  his  suit.     In  small  things,    1634. 
as  in  great  things,  though  he  professes  a  boundless  ad- 

8.  Bacon  to  Conway,  Sept.  4, 1623,  S.  P.  0. ;  Sign  Man.,  xvi.,  No.  42. 

W 


354  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIV.  8.  miration  for  Bacon's  parts,  he  chooses  to  have  about 
him  men  more  pliable  and  more  frail.  Sir  William 
Beecher,  a  gentleman  unfit  for  such  a  post  as  Murray's, 
takes  a  promise  of  2,500£.  in  lieu  of  the  succession ;  but 
Sir  Henry  Wotton,  an  honorable  man  and  a  good  scholar, 
though  of  far  less  various  learning  and  far  less  exalted 
virtue  than  Lord  St.  Albans,  gets  the  Provostship  of 
Eton. 

9.  It  is   the   last  time   he   troubles    Buckingham   or 
James.     Henceforth   he  devotes    himself  to   his  experi- 
ments and  his  books ;    to  the  collections  for  the  Sylva 
Sylvarum ;  to  his  Historia  Yitae  et  Mortis  ;  to  the  con- 
struction of  his   new  Atlantis  ;   to   the  enlargement  of 
his  Essays.     He  is  a  greater  man  now  in  bis  study  than 
when  the   Mace  was  borne   before   him,  and  the   Lord 
Treasurer  and  Secretary  of  State  rode  on  his  right  hand 
and  on  his  left.     He  lives  in  seclusion  ;   but  his  writ 
ings  fill  the  whole  world  with  his  fame. 

10.  From  the  seclusion  of  Gorhambury  or  Gray's  Inn 
he  watches  the  men  who  have  ruined  his  fortune  and 
stained  his  name  fall  one  by  one.     Before  their  year  of 
triumph  ran  out,  Coke's  intolerable  arrogance  plunged 
him  into  the  Tower,  from  which  he  escaped,  after  eight 
months'  imprisonment,  to  be  permanently  degraded  from 

10.  Council  Reg.,  Dec.  27, 1621,  Aug.  6, 1622;  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Aug. 
18,  Dec.  1,  1621,  June  8,  1622,  S.  P.  0.;  James's  Reply  to  the  Commons,  Dec. 
11, 1621,  S.  P.  0.;  Locke  to  Carleton,  Jan.  1,  1622,  S.  P.  0.;  Buckingham  to 
Crew,  Feb.  11, 1625,  S.  P.  0. 


FALL  OF  HIS  ENEMIES.  355 

the  Privy  Council,  banished  from  the  court,  and  con-  XIV.  10. 
fined  to  his  dismal  ruin  of  a  house  at  Stoke.  The  sale 
of  Frances  Coke  to  Viscount  Purbeck  is  a  dismal  fail- 
ure. She  makes  the  man  to  whom  she  was  sold  per- 
fectly miserable ;  quitting  his  house  for  days  and  nights ; 
braving  the  public  streets  in  male  attire  ;  falling  in  guilty 
love  with  Sir  Kobert  Howard ;  shocking  even  the  brazen 
sinners  of  St.  James's  by  the  excessive  profligacy  of  her 
life.  Purbeck  steals  abroad  to  hide  his  shame.  At  last 
he  goes  raving  mad.  In  less  than  three  years  from  the 
day  of  that  gorgeous  feast  as  court,  Buckingham  would 
have  given  his  marquisate  to  untie  the  knot.  All  that 
Bacon  foresaw  has  come  to  pass.  Sir  Robert  Howard, 
a  son  of  that  Earl  of  Suffolk  whom  Buckingham  broke 
and  disgraced,  pursues  his  pleasure  and  his  revenge  in 
the  amour  with  Lady  Purbebk,  willing  to  vindicate  by 
his  sword  the  injury  done  by  his  lawless  love.  Buck- 
ingham, who  lacks  courage  either  to  defend  his  family 
honor  or  to  renew  the  scandalous  scene  of  the  Essex 
divorce,  in  place  of  crossing  blades  with  Howard  in  Ma- 
rylebone  Park  proceeds  against  his  sister-in-law  for  in- 
continence, and  procures  from  the  Ecclesiastical  Court 
a  sentence  condemning  her  to  stand  in  a  penitential 
white  sheet  at  the  door  of  the  Savoy  church.  It  is 
easier  to  condemn  than  to  catch  the  nimble  profligate, 
an  accomplished  player  at  hide  and  seek.  Once  the 
pursuivants  catch  a  glimpse  of  her  near  an  ambassador's 
house ;  they  chase ;  she  slips  from  her  coach,  runs 
through  the  gates,  changes  clothes  with  a  page,  who 


356  FRANCIS   BACON. 

XIV.  10.  minces  like  a  lady  into  her  seat,  and  tears  down  the 
Strand  with  Buckingham's  men  at  the  wheels.  She 
trips  laughingly  away,  while  the  officers  of  justice  fol- 
low the  coach  and  seize  the  boy. 

May-  11.  The  very  next  Parliament  which  meets  in  "West- 
minster strikes  down  two  of  his  foes.  Three  years  after 
his  return  to  that  trust  he  so  grossly  abused,  Churchill 
comes  before  the  House  of  Commons  as  a  culprit.  He 
has  been  at  his  tricks  again,  and  is  now  solemnly  con- 
victed of  forgery  and  fraud.  Two  months  after  Church- 
ill's condemnation  Cranfield  is  in  turn  assailed.  Charges 
of  taking  bribes  from  the  farmers  of  customs,  of  fraudu- 
lent dealing  with  the  royal  debts,  of  robbing  the  magazine 
of  arms,  are  proved  against  him  ;  when,  abandoned  by 
his  powerful  friends,  he  is  sentenced  by  the  House  of 
Commons  to  public  infamy,  to  loss  of  office,  to  imprison- 
ment in  the  Tower,  to  a  restitutionary  fine  of  two  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  !  "  In  future  ages,"  says  a  wise 
observer  of  events,  "  men  will  wonder  how  my  Lord  St. 
Albans  could  have  fallen,  how  my  Lord  of  Middlesex 
could  have  risen." 

1625.        12.   The  most   subtle   of  his   enemies  falls  the  last. 
NOT.  i.    ^fl-er  yg  promotion  to  the  Seals  and  mitre,  Williams, 

11.  Com.  Jour.,  i.  591,  766;  Nicholas  to  Nicholas,  Mar.  17,  1624/  S.  P.  0.; 
Chichester  to  Carleton,  May  12,  1624,  S.  P.  0.;  Locke  to  Carleton,  May  13, 
1624,  S.  P.  0. 

12.  Suckling  to  Buckingham,  Oct.  24,  1625,  S.  P.  0.;  Williams  to  Goring, 
Oct.  30,  1625,  S.  P.  0. 


1625. 
NOT.  1. 


FALL   OF  HIS  ENEMIES.  357 

silly  enough  to  dream  that  he  could  stand  alone,  began  XIV.  12. 
to  neglect  Lady  Buckingham  for  younger  and  less  exact- 
ing women.  Murmurs  now  rise  against  him ;  slowly  at 
first,  but  gathering  strength  as  his  ingratitude,  his  ar- 
rogance, and  his  cupidity  prove  themselves  month  by 
month.  When  Lady  Buckingham  withdraws  from  him 

her  countenance,  he  falls  at  once  from  his  fatal  height 

is  stripped  of  the  Seals  with  every  mark  of  ignominy  — 
and  is  driven,  with  a  sullied  reputation,  though  with 
sharpened  powers  for  mischief,  from  the  Court  of  Chan- 
cery into  the  more  settled  scenes  of  ecclesiastical  strife. 

13.  Were  there  space  in  his  generous  heart  for  ven- 
geance, how  the  passions  of  the  great  Chancellor  would 
glow  and  leap  as  these  adversaries  fall  before  his  eyes 
like  rotten  fruit !  Never  was  the  wisdom  of  counsel 
proved  more  signally,  the  vindication  of  conduct  more 
complete.  All  that  he  foresaw  of  evil  has  come  to  pass. 
He  does  not,  indeed,  live  to  behold  that  fiery  joy  which 
lights  and  shakes  the  land  when  Buckingham's  tyranny 
drops  under  an  assassin's  knife ;  but  he  lives  long  enough 
to  find  himself  justified  by  facts  on  every  point  of  his 
opposition  to  the  scandalous  family  policy  and  private 
bargains  -of  the  Villiers  clan.  Frances  Coke  has  made 
Sir  John  a  perfectly  bad  wife.  Elizabeth  Norreys  has 
run  away  from  Sir  Christopher,  giving  up  her  beauty 
and  her  fortunes  to  Edward  Wray.  Lady  Buckingham 

13.  Chamberlain  to  Carleton,  Mar.  30,  1622,  8.  P.  0.;  Bacon's  Will;  Mon- 
tagu, xvi.  part  ii.  447;  Dom.  Papers  of  Charles  the  First,  xxiv.  69. 


358  FRANCIS  BACON. 

XIV.  13.  herself,  after  moving  earth  and  hell  to  pull  down  Abbott 

and  make  her  lover  an  archbishop,  has  had  to  endure 
1625. 
NOT.  i.    the  Pain  and  mortification  of  seeing  the  creature  of  her 

fantasy  neglect  her  charms.  Coke,  Cranfield,  Churchill, 
Williams,  have  been  alike  overwhelmed  with  misery  and 
shame.  But  he  feels  no  quickening  pang  of  joy  at  the 
discomfiture  of  these  enemies.  From  the  moment  of  his 
own  trial,  he  has  accepted  the  position  of  a  necessary 
sacrifice.  He  breathes  no  word  against  the  House  of 
Commons,  nor  questions  the  justice  of  the  House  of 
Lords.  He  speaks  no  evil  word  of  the  men  who  made 
themselves  the  instruments  of  his  fall.  But  he  holds  to 
his  nobler  intellectual  work,  and  the  Father  of  Experi- 
mental Philosophy  dies  at  last  in  the  very  act  of  an  ex- 
periment, quitting  the  world  in  peace  with  all  men, 
leaving  a  young  widow,  who,  like  her  mother,  will 
marry  again,  and  appealing  for  the  vindication  of  his 
fame  to  time. 


APPENDICES. 


APPENDICES. 


No.   I.  APR 

I. 

LADY  ANN  BACON  TO  LORD  BURGHLEY. 

(Original  in  Lansdowne  MSS.,  xliii.  48.) 

Feb.  26, 1586. 

I  KNOW  well,  mine  especial  good  Lord,  it  becometh  me 
not  to  be  troublesome  unto  your  honor  at  any  other  time, 
but  now  chiefly  in  this  season  of  your  greatest  affair  and 
small  or  no  leisure  ;  but  yet,  because  yesterday  morning, 
especially  as  in  that  I  was  extraordinarily  admitted,  it 
was  your  Lordship's  favor,  so,  fearing  to  stay  too  long,  I 
could  not  so  plainly  speak,  nor  so  well  receive  your  an- 
swer thereto,  as  I  would  truly  and  gladly  in  that  matter, 
I  am  bold  by  this  writing  to  enlarge  the  same  more 
plainly,  and  to  what  end  I  did  mean. 

If  it  may  like  your  good  Lordship,  the  report  of  the 
late  conference  at  Lambeth  hath  been  so  handled,  to  the 
discrediting  of  those  learned  that  labor  for  right  reforma- 
tion in  the  ministry  of  the  Gospel,  that  it  is  no  small 
grief  of  mind  to  the  faithful  preachers  ;  because  the 
matter  is  thus  by  the  other  side  carried  away,  as  though 
their  cause  could  not  sufficiently  be  warranted  by  the 
word  of  God.  For  the  which  proof  they  have  long  been 
16 


362  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  sad  suitors,  and  would  most  humbly  crave  still  both  of 
*•  God  in  heaven,  whose  cause  it  is,  and  of  her  Majesty 
their  most  excellent  Sovereign  here  in  earth,  that  they 
might  obtain  quiet  and  convenient  audience  either  before 
her  Majesty  herself,  whose  heart  is  in  God's  hand  to  touch 
and  to  turn,  or  before  your  honors  of  the  Council,  whose 
wisdom  they  greatly  reverence.  And  if  they  cannot 
strongly  prove  before  you  out  (of)  the  Word  of  God  that 
reformation  which  they  so  long  have  called  and  cried  for, 
to  be  according  to  Christ's  own  ordinance,  then  to  let 
them  be  rejected  with  shame  out  of  the  Church  forever. 
And  that  this  may  be  the  better  done  to  the  glory  of  God 
and  true  understanding  of  this  great  cause,  they  require, 
first,  leave  to  assemble  and  to  consult  together  purposely, 
which  they  have  forborne  to  do  for  avoiding  suspicion  of 
private  conventicles.  For  hitherto,  though  in  some  writ- 
ing they  have  declared  the  state  of  their,  yea  God's  cause, 
yet  were  they  never  allowed  to  confer  together,  and  so 
together  be  heard  fully.  But  now  some  one,  and  then 
some  two,  called  upon  a  sudden  unprepared,  to  four  pre- 
pared to  catch  them,  rather  than  gravely  and  moderately 
to  be  heard  to  defend  their  right  and  good  cause. 

And,  therefore,  for  such  weighty  conference  they  appeal 
to  her  Majesty  and  her  honorable  wise  Council,  whom 
God  hath  placed  in  highest  authority  for  the  advance- 
ment of  his  kingdom,  and  refuse  the  bishops  for  judges, 
who  are  parties  partial  in  their  own  defence,  because 
they  seek  more  worldly  ambition  than  the  glory  of  Christ 
Jesus. 


LADY  BACON  TO  LORD  BURGHLEY.        363 

For  my  own  part,  my  good  Lord,  I  will  not  deny  but  APP. 
as  I  may  I  hear  them  in  their  public  exercises  as  a  chief  L 
duty  commanded  by  God  to  widows ;  and  also  I  confess, 
as  one  that  hath  found  mercy,  that  I  have  profited  more 
in  the  inward  feeling  knowledge  of  God's  Holy  will 
(though  but  in  a  small  measure)  by  such  sincere  and 
sound  opening  of  the  Scriptures  by  an  ordinary  preaching, 
within  these  seven  or  eight  years,  than  I  did  by  hearing 
odd  sermons  at  Paul's  wellnigh  twenty  years  together.  I 
mention  this  unfeignedly,  the  rather  to  excuse  this  my 
boldness  towards  your  Lordship,  humbly  beseeching  your 
Lordship  to  think  upon  their  suit,  and,  as  God  shall  move 
your  understanding  heart,  to  further  it.  And  if  oppor- 
tunity will  not  be  had  as  they  require,  yet  I  once  again 
in  humble  wise  am  a  suitor  unto  your  Lordship  that 
you  would  be  so  good  as  to  choose  two  or  three  of  them 
which  your  honor  liketh  best,  and  license  them  before 
your  own  self,  or  other  at  your  pleasure,  to  declare 
and  to  prove  the  truth  of  the  cause  with  a  quiet  and 
an  attentive  ear. 

I  have  heard  them  say  ere  now  they  will  not  come 
to  dispute  and  argue  to  breed  contention,  which  is  the 
manner  of  the  bishops'  hearing ;  but  to  be  suffered  pa- 
tiently to  lay  down  before  them  that  shall  command 
(they  then  excepted)  how  well  and  certainly  they  can 
warrant,  by  the  infallible  touchstone  of  the  Word,  the 
substantial  and  mam  ground  of  their  cause.  Surely,  my 
Lord,  I  am  persuaded  you  should  do  God  acceptable 
service  herein ;  and  for  the  very  entire  affection  I  owe 


364  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.     and  do  bear  unto  your  honor  I  wish  from  the  very  heart 
*•       that,  to  your  other  rare  gifts  sundry-wise,  you  were  fully 
instructed  and  satisfied  in  this  principal  matter  so  con- 
temned of  the  great  Rabbis,  to  the  dishonoring  of  the 
Gospel  so  long  amongst  us. 

I  am  so  much  bound  to  your  Lordship  for  your  com- 
fortable dealing  toward  me  and  mine,  as  I  do  incessantly 
desire  that  by  your  Lordship's  means  God's  glory  may 
more  and  more  be  promoted,  the  grieved  godly  comforted, 
and  you  and  yours  abundantly  blessed.  None  is  privy  to 
this  ;  and,  indeed,  though  I  hear  them,  yet  I  see  them 
very  seldom.  I  trust  your  Lordship  will  accept  in  best 
part  my  best  meaning. 

In  the  Lord  dutifully  and  most  heartily, 

A.  BACON. 

For  thinness  of  the  paper  I  write  on  the  other  leaf  for 
my  ill  eyes. 


n.  i.  No.  II. 

LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  648,  fol.  110.) 

May  29,  1592. 

I  am  glad  and  thank  God  of  your  amendment ;  but 
my  man  said  he  heard  you  rose  at  three  of  the  clock. 
I  thought  that  was  not  well,  so  suddenly  from  bedding 
much,  to  rise  so  early  newly  out  of  your  diet.  Extrem- 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        365 

ities  be  hurtful  to  whole,  more  to  the  sickly.  If  you  be  APP. 
not  wise  and  discreet  for  your  diet  and  seasoning  of  your  n-  *• 
doings,  you  will  be  weakish  I  fear  a  good  while.  Be  wise 
and  godly  too,  and  discern  what  is  good  and  what  not  for 
your  health.  Avoid  extremities.  What  a  great  folly  were 
it  in  you  to  take  cold  to  hinder  your  amendment,  being 
not  compelled,  but  upon  voluntary  indiscretion,  seeing  the 
cost  of  physic  is  much,  your  pain  long,  and  your  amend- 
ment slow,  and  your  duty  not  yet  done !  Give  none 
occasion  by  negligence.  You  go,  as  is  commonly  said, 
of  your  own  errands.  I  like  not  your  lending  your  coach 
yet  to  any  lord  or  lady;  if  you  once  begin  you  shall 
hardly  end ;  but  that  in  hope  you  shall  shortly  use  it,  I 
would  it  were  here,  to  shun  all  offending.  It  was  not 
well  it  was  so  soon  seen  at  the  Court,  to  make  talk, 
and  at  last  be  mocked  or  misliked.  Tell  your  brother 
I  counsel  you  to  send  it  no  more.  What  had  my 
Lady  Shrewsbury  to  borrow  your  coach !  Your  man 
for  money,  and  somebody  else  for  their  vain  credit,  will 
work  you  but  displeasure  and  loss,  and  they  have  thanks. 
Learn  to  he  wise  in  things  of  this  sort,  and  do  nothing 
rashly.  In  haste.  Late  this  Sabbath.  Farewell.  Take 

care  of  your  health  and  please  God. 

A,  B. 

LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  n.  2. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  65.) 

April  16,  1698. 

My  neighbor  upon  going  to  London  for  his  own  busi- 
ness told  me  of  it  suddenly  after  this  Sabbath  forenoon 


366  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  sermon  that  he  must  go  to  London,  and  that  early  to- 
n 2-  morrow.  I  am  desirous  to  know  how  your  health  is ; 
how  matters  after  Parliament  go  to  private  folk,  namely, 
as  concerns  your  cousin  Hoby ;  and,  if  you  will,  your 
brother  too.  God  grant  us  all  faithful  hearts  in  piety 
and  religion,  and  wise  and  discreet  in  godly  practices. 
If  any  lack  wisdom,  ask  of  the  Lord,  and  receive,  as 
saith  the  Apostle  James,  his  grace  with  all  Christian 
fortitude  to  bear  up  a  good  conscience.  I  haste  to  the 
church  again.  God  make  you  able  to  hear  public  in- 
structions to  your  great  comfort !  I  could  willingly  hear 
of  Barly  proceedings  ;  for  your  state  of  want  of  health 
and  of  money,  and  some  other  things  touching  you 
both,  gives  me  no  quiet.  God  bless  you  both  with  good 
and  godly  increase  in  Christ. 
Easter,  as  they  say. 

Your  mother, 

A.  B. 

113.  LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  100.) 

Gorhambury,  June  26, 1593. 
SON, — 

Goodman  Grinnell  of  Barly  came  this  morning  hither 
very  sad  upon  a  speech  he  had  heard  you  were  about 
to  let  his  farm  to  another,  yet  hopeth  better,  both  for 
your  promise  and  the  receipt  of  some  money  upon  it. 
Good  son,  keep  your  word  advisedly  spoken ;  it  is  a 
Christian  credit.  Be  not  suddenly  removed  nor  believe 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        367 

hastily,  but  know  whom  and  how.  Sure,  if  that  dis-  APP. 
position  be  found  and  observed  in  you  once,  it  will  be  H-  3- 
wrought  upon  to  your  hindrance  in  estimation  and  profit, 
besides  that  the  grandfather,  father,  and  sou  have  there 
continued,  —  I  think  once  upon  a  sale  of  wood  in  your 
absence  I  heard  that  the  Grinnells  had  dwelled  there 
above  a  hundred  and  twenty  years.  The  man  is  will- 
ing to  do  as  much  as  another  ;  the  same  person  that 
now  would  I  wot  not.  What  reversion  in  your  absence 
was  backward,  and  rather  hindered  wood  sales  and  other 
things,,  he  would  fain  have  had  Goodman  Fynch  with  him 
to  you,  but  I  can  in  nowise  now  spare  him.  Mowing 
and  other  businesses  come  on  ;  it  is  here  marvellously 
hot  and  dry,  and  grass  burnt  away.  God  help  us  !  I 
pray  you  comfort  Grinnell's  heart  and  keep  just  prom- 
ises justly,  and  be  not  credulous  lightly  ;  and  so  the 
Lord  bless  you  and  guide  you  with  His  Holy  Spirit  in 
His  fear !  Be  not  too  frank  with  that  Papist ;  such 
have  seducing  spirits  to  snare  the  godly.  Be  not  too 
open.  Sit  not  up  late,  nor  disorder  your  body,  that 
you  may  have  health  to  do  good  service  when  God  shall 

appoint. 

Your  careful  mother, 

A.  BACON. 
LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  II.  4. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  649,  fol.  232.) 

Oct.  8,  1593. 

I  pray  God  keep  you  safe  from  all  infection  of  sin  and 
plague.     It  hath  pleased  the  Lord  to  put  me  in  remem- 


368  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  brance,  on  both  sides  of  me,  by  taking  two  of  the  sick- 
n-  4-  ness,  very  necessary  persons  to  me,  a  widow,  specially 
the  goodman  Fynch,  whose  want  I  shall  have  cause  to 
lament  daily.  His  careful,  and  skilful,  and  very  trusty 
husbanding  my  special  rural  businesses  every  way  pro- 
cured me,  and  that  even  to  the  very  last,  much  quiet  of 
mind  and  leisure  to  spend  my  time  in  godly  exercises, 
both  public  and  private.  I  confess  I  am  so  heartily  sorry 
for  his  death  as  I  cannot  choose  but  mourn  my  great 
loss  thereby,  and  now  in  my  weakish  sickly  age  ;  but  the 
Lord  God  doth  it  to  humble  His  servants  and  teach  them 
to  draw  nearer  to  Him  in  heart  unfeignedly,  which  grace 
God  grant  me  to  be  effectual  in  me.  I  humbly  beseech 
His  pity.  Surely,  son,  one  cannot  value  rightly  the 
singular  benefit  of  such  a  one  in  these  dissolute  and 
unfaithful  days,  but  by  wise  consideration  and  good  ex- 
perience. It  may  be  you  know  it  ere  this,  by  somebody's 
posting  in  jollity  ;  but  be  wise  and  learn  in  time  to  your 
own  good  estimation,  and  be  not  readily  carried  cither 
to  believe  or  do  upon  unthrifts'  pleasing  and  boasting 
speeches,  and  but  mockeries,  in  order  to  make  their 
profit  of  you  and  to  bear  out  their  unknown  to  you 
disordered  unruliness.  Among  their  peradventure  pot- 
fellowship  companions  there  will  be  craving  of  you,  and 
I  wot  not  what.  Promise  not  rashly,  be  hie  juris  ;  you 
shall  be  better  esteemed  both  of  wise  and  unwise  before 
that  punitive  experience  shall  teach  you  to  your  cost. 
It  is  said  that  Thistleworth  is  visited.  Some  talk  how 
Fynch  shoiild  take  it  there  in  baiting  his  horse  ;  but  now 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        369 

lie  is  gone.     So  was  the  will  of  God,  who  bless  you  and     Apr. 
send  you  much  good  of  all  your  bodily  physic,  and  make    IL  4- 
you  strong  to  do  His  holy  will  to  your  comfort.     Be  slow 
in  speaking'and  promising,  lest  you  repent  when  it  is  too 
late.     Commend  me  to  your  brother.     Look  well  to  your 
house  and  servants.     Fear  late  and   night  roads,  now 

towards  winter. 

Your  sad  mother, 

A.  BACON. 
LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  H.  5. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  650,  fol.  223.) 

Sept.  7,  1594. 

I  send  you  herein  Crosby's  letter,  because  you  may 
better  understand  by  it  the  words  of  the  Sheriff  to  him- 
self, if  the  State  be  brought  in  question.  I  am  sorry  of 
the  last  act  you  so  earnestly  required,  whereto  I  was 
hardly  drawn,  as  you  know,  for  doubt  of  danger.  Doubt- 
less your  brother  Nic  hath  done  somewhat  in  the  Ex- 
chequer. You  thought  it  could  not  come  to  his  ear  so 
soon  ;  but  you  see  you  are  deceived.  You  shall  do  well 
to  send  for  the  attorney  and  mine,  —  Marsh  I  do  mean. 
If  he  should  strain  upon  the  manor  to  trouble  me  and 
my  tenants,  I  have  brought  myself  in  good  case  by  your 
means.  Mr.  Crew  is  not  in  city  I  hear.  It  is  the  worse. 
The  Sheriff  threateneth  to  strain  before  the  next  audit, 
which  is  before  Michaeltide,  which  is  not  three  weeks 
hence  at  uttermost.  You  had  not  need  to  slack  this,  as 
Brocket's  matter  is  to  my  hinderance.  Some  money  I 
16*  x 


370  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.  had  need  of  for  to  have  pay  the  suit  by  his  cousin.  I 
** 5-  have  not  of  mine  own  at  this  present  for  my  house 
and  other  charges  61.  in  money  :  I  am  ready  to  borrow 
10/.  of  my  neighbors  if  I  can.  I  send  purposely.  I 
pray  you  let  me  know  certainly  what  way  you  take  to 
help  it  with  speed.  If  it  once  come  in  Exchequer  suit, 
one  trouble  will  follow  another.  Prevent  therefore.  I 
would  fain  have  gone  to  London  for  physic  next  week, 
but  I  perceive  I  cannot,  being  weakish  to  ride  so  far, 
and  the  way  is  but  ill  for  a  coach  for  me,  besides  the  wet 
weather.  I  will  desire  Mistress  Morer  to  be  with  me  here 
for  that  time.  If  you  prove  your  new  in  hand  physic, 
God  give  you  good  of  it.  My  Lord  Treasurer  about  five 
years  past  was  greatly  pressed  by  the  great  vaunt  of  a 
sudden  start-up  glorious  stranger,  that  would  needs  cure 
him  of  the  gout  by  boast ;  "  but,"  quoth  my  Lord,  "  have 
you  cured  any  ?  Let  me  know  and  see  them."  "  Nay," 
said  the  fellow,  "  but  I  am  sure  I  can."  "  Well,"  con- 
cluded my  Lord,  and  said,  "  Go,  go,  and  cure  first,  and 
then  come  again,  or  else  not."  I  would  you  had  so  done. 
But  I  pray  God  bless  it  to  you,  and  pray  heartily  to  God 
for  your  good  recovery  and  sound.  I  am  sorry  your 
brother  and  you  charge  yourselves  with  superfluous 
horses.  The  wise  will  but  laugh  at  you  both  ;  being  but 
trouble,  besides  your  debts,  long  journeys,  and  private 
persons.  Earls  be  Earls.  Your  vain  man  straitly  by 
his  sloth  and  proud  quarrel-picking  conditions  sets  all 
your  house  at  Redbourn  out  of  quiet  order  by  general 
complaint,  as  I  hear.  Lately  young  Morer  was  smote  in 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        371 

the  eye  by  him,  and  I  pray  God  you  hear  not  of  some    APP. 
mischief  by    him.      But  my   sons  have  no  judgment.    n- 5- 
They  will  have  such  about  them,  and  in  their  house,  and 
will  not  in  time  remedy  it  before  it  break  out  in  some 
manifest  token  of  God's  displeasure.     I  cannot  cease  to 
warn  as  long  as  I  am  a  mother  that  loveth  you  in  the 
Lord  most   dearly,   and   as  Seneca  by  philosophy  only 
could   say,   in   warning  a  friend  I  would  rather  lack 
success  (which  yet  I  deprecate)  than  fidelity. 

Your  mother, 

A.  BACON. 

The  heavenly  preacher  saith,  Each  thing  hath  his  op- 
portunity and  due  season :  well  may  you  do  as  blessed 
in  the  Lord  ! 

LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  n- 6- 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  650,  fol.  76.) 

March  1696. 

One  of  the  prophets,  Nahum  I  think,  saith  that  the 
Lord  hath  His  way  in  the  whirlwind,  the  storm,  and 
tempest,  and  clouds  are  the  dust  of  His  feet.  The 
wind  hath  had  great  power,  —  it  hath  thrown  off  a  num- 
ber of  tiles,  some  fruit-trees,  and  one  or  two  other  pales, 
posts  and  all,  and  stone  pinnacle  ;  and  that  I  am  sor- 
riest for,  hath  blown  up  a  sheet  of  lead  on  one  side  of 
the  gate  where  the  dial  stands.  But,  in  my  conscience, 
your  French  cattle,  Jaques  and  all,  had  before  loosened 
it  with  hacking  lead  for  pellets.  I  pray  burn  this.  Let 


372  FRANCIS  BACON. 

Apr.  them  not  see  it;  but  hurtful  they  were.  I  desire  to 
H-6-  know  hpw  you  did  and  do.  I  pray  be  careful  to  be 
well  to  your  own  comfort  and  good  desire  of  your 
friends,  witlh  avoiding  cold-taking  continually  and  pre- 
venting by  wariness.  Sustain  and  abstain,  and  be  cheer- 
ful and  sleep  in  due  time.  I  liked  nothing  my  cousin 
Kemp's  horse  I  sent  you.  I  will  not  Graham's.  My 
time  is  in  God's  hand,  and  not  at  his  appointment : 
he  ever  stood  upon  a  month's  warning  in  my  life. 
Some  unknown  trick  there  is  ;  it  will  not  serve  with 
me  doubtless.  And  shall  Elsdon  and  Brocket  thus  dally 
and  mock  still  ?  If  God  give  me  strength  I  will  to 
London  for  these  two  causes,  by  His  merciful  guiding. 

A.  B. 
II.  7.  LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  650,  fol.  69.) 

March,  1595. 

I  came  yesterday  home,  I  thank  God  well,  though 
very  weary,  by  that  missing  the  right  way  we  roved 
and  made  it  longer.  I  found  a  very  sick  and  sore 
altered  man.  One  might  by  him  see  what  is  the  change 
wrought  by  the  hand  of  the  Highest  in  correcting.  He 
hath  been,  as  you  know,  a  strong-armed  man,  and  active 
•  in  such  exercises  of  strength  as  shooting,  wrestling,  cast- 
ing the  bar ;  and  whilst  he  was  with  me  I  never  used 
footstool  to  horseback  ;  but  now,  God  help  him,  weak 
in  voice,  his  flesh  consumed,  his  hands,  bones,  and  sin- 
ews ;  but  his  belly  up  to  his  very  chest  swollen  and 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        373 

hoved  up,  and  as  hard  withal   as   though  one  touched     Apr. 
wainscot.     I  thank  the  Lord  that  put  me  in  the  mind     n-  7- 
to  visit  him  with  a  Christian  desire  to  comfort  his  soul, 
which  I  trust  Mr.  Wilblood's  spiritual  counsel  and  com- 
fort, with  hearty  prayer,  was  a  mean  to  it ;  God,  I  trust, 
working  with  his  admonitions   in   the  sick  body  to  the 
reviving  of  his  soul.     He  hath  his  memory  perfect,  and 
well  and  glad  of  godly  correction.     God  grant  him  and 
myself    also    his    continual  sweet  comfort  and  feeling 
mercy  to  the  end !     Amen. 

For  your  going  you  spoke  of  to  London,  and  will 
have  the  two  beds  hence  for  your  servants,  let  me  know 
in  time.  I  would  you  had  here  tarried  till  that  re- 
move ;  you  should  have  spared  much  waste  expense, 
which  you  need  not,  and  have  been  better  provided. 
Surely,  if  you  keep  all  your  Redbourn  household  at 
London,  you  will  undo  yourself.  Money  is  very  hard 
to  come  by,  and  sure  friends  more  hard ;  and  you  shall 
be  still  in  other  folk's  danger,  and  not  your  own  man, 
and  your  debts  will  pinch  you,  though  you  may  hope ; 
but  your  continual  sickliness  withal  is  a  great  hindrance  ; 
and  if  you  make  show  of  a  housekeeping  in  the  city, 
you  shall  quickly  be  overcharged,  much  disquieted,  and 
brought  not  over  the  ears  but  over  shoulders.  There- 
fore at  the  beginning  be  very  wary  and  wise,  as  it  is 

said.     "  Learn  to  be  wise  for  yourself,"  one  said 

Consult  the  Lord,  and  do  nothing  rashly.  I  could  not 
choose  but  advise  as  heretofore.  God  guide  you  to 
safe  age's  rest,  and  best  course. 


374  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP  LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

TT   a 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  651,  foL  66.) 

March  30, 1595. 

I  mean,  if  God  will,  to  come  hither  again  before 
Easter;  but  you  are  going  farther  hence  than  my 
ableness  will  endure  to  travel,  either  by  water  or  by 
land,  and  know  not  when  I  shall  see  you  any  more. 
I  pray  God  to  go  before  you,  and  to  be  with  you  ever, 
to  heal  you,  to  help  you,  and  to  counsel  and  comfort 
you  continually  with  His  fatherly  love  in  Christ  Jesus 
our  Lord.  Amen. 

I  wrote  yesterday  to  my  Lady  Walsingham  and  by  her 
to  the  Countess  [of  Essex].  She  took  it  well,  and 
thanked  me.  The  Countess  is  very  near  her  travailing 
time.  I  beseech  God  of  His  goodness  make  her  a  joyful 
mother,  with  daily  increase  of  God's  blessing  upon  her 
and  hers.  Beware  in  anywise  of  the  Lord  H.  [Howard]  ! 
He  is  a  dangerous  intelligeucing  man  ;  no  doubt  a  subtle 
Papist  inwardly,  and  lieth  in  wait.  Peradventure  he 
hath  some  close  working  with  STANDEN  and  the  SPANIARD 
[Perez] .  Be  not  too  open  ;  he  will  betray  you  to  divers, 
and  to  your  AUNT  RUSSELL  among  others.  The  Duke  had 
been  alive  but  by  his  practising  and  still  soliciting  him, 
to  the  double  undoing.  And  the  EARL  of  ARUNDEL,  avoid 
his  familiarity  as  you  love  the  truth  and  yourself.  A 
very  instrument  of  the  Spanish  Papists.  I  pray  you  no 
creature  know  or  see  this  I  write  ;  but  burn  it  with  your 
own  hands.  And  remember ;  for  he,  pretending  courtesy, 
works  mischief  devilishly.  I  have  long  known  him  and 


LADY   BACON   TO   ANTHONY   BACON.  375 

observed  him;  his  workings  have  been  stark  naught.  Apr. 
Stand  at  a  distance  !  I  am  sorry  I  cannot  speak  with  H-  8- 
Dr.  Fletcher  for  your  horse.  I  would  certainly  know. 
It  is  not  like  you  will  brew  hastily.  Send  me  word  what 
time  you  guess,  because  of  mine  absence  if  God  let  me 
live.  But  vessels  and  carriage  must  surely  be  provided  ; 
for  indeed  I  have  none  for  malt.  If  you  tell  Crosby  your 
mind,  I  will  pay  for  it  when  I  have  received  rents.  Gryst 
is  very  dear  rnethinks,  but  he  denieth.  If  you  had  taken 
your  physics  here  in  your  well-warmed  house,  it  had  been 
better  I  think.  God  be  your  guide  in  all  your  ways,  and 
take  heed  of  cold-taking  upon  remove  and  after  physic. 
Call  for  your  own  necessaries  ;  you  may  forget  you,  and 
you  smart  for  it.  Use  your  legs  as  you  may,  daily  ;  they 
will  else  be  the  feebler,  and  the  sinews  stark  and 
strengthless.  It  is  true,  I  fear,  there  is  no  ordinary 
preaching  ministry  at  Chelsea.  I  cannot  tell  how  to 
lament  it ;  but  both  my  sons,  methinks,  "do  not  care  for 
it  where  they  dwell.  Greater  want  cannot  be.  We  had 
needs  watch  continually  to  be  well  armed  against  evil 
days,  imminent  to  be  feared ;  for  of  all  sorts  we  wax 
worse  and  worse.  London  waxeth  straitlaced,  urging 
that  slavish  pleasing  will  not  salve  his  hard-cured  sore. 
Burn  this.  The  God  of  mercy,  health,  and  peace  com- 
pass you  about  with  His  heavenly  favor  wheresoever. 
Farewell  in  Christ  now  and  ever.  Your  mother, 

A.  B. 

My  grief  is  great  about  Essex,  and  truly  I  fear  lest 


376  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.     opportunity  should  have  given  rise  to  most  shameful  and 

n.  8.    grievous  adultery  and  the  midst  of  evils  and (Here 

follow  five  words  much  blotted  and  very  indistinct.) 

9 

n.  9.         LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  657,  fol.  54.) 

Gorhambury,  April  1,  1595. 

I  send  between  your  brother  and  you  the  first  flight  of 
my  dove-house:  the  Lord  be  thanked  for  all:  ij  dozen 
and  iiij  pigeons,  xij  to  you,  and  xvj  to  your  brother,  be- 
cause he  was  wont  to  love  them  better  than  you  from  a 
boy.  Marvellous  hard,  snowy,  haily,  and  strong,  windy 
weather  here,  and  great  scarcity.  I  have  had  more  toil 
in  my  body  few  days  since  I  came  last  hither  than  in 
above  twice  as  long  at  London.  I  wish  myself  there 
again,  and  peradventure,  if  God  will,  I  will  before  Easter 
as  now  minded.  *  I  am  glad  your  beer  was  sent  so  soon. 
To-day,  upon  occasion  of  a  maid  sending  to  Redborn,  but 
none  of  my  servants,  I  hear  Mistress  Read  and  Henry  are 
malcontent  for  certain  implements ;  specially,  as  they  say, 
in  the  best  reserved  chamber  for  your  friends,  noble  or 
not  noble,  a  carpet,  and  other  things  filled  with  birds, 
hunting  or  hawks  or  dogs.  Mr.  Lawson  was  the -noble- 
man lodged  there,  I  ween ;  and  like  enough,  for  he  is 
subtle,  vainglorious,  and  makes  you  bleared  still  to 
insure  all,  and  pay  for  all ;  and  further,  as  was  reported, 
that  Norris  was  discontented  for  your  requiring  to  Mr. 
Read,  he  not  made  privy  before.  Thus  they  talk,  and 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        377 

something  else,  now  you  are  gone ;  and  one  that  tames    APP. 
the  bit  is  become  a  tippler  and  will  be  overseen  with     TI<  9- 
drink,  but  an  ill  servant  in  your  house,  the  fruit  of  idle- 
ness. 

Large  was  here  this  day.  I  told  him  it  was  honesty 
and  Christian  duty  to  dwell  at  home  with  his  wife.  I 
would,  I  said,  be  loath  that  my  son  should  bear  the  blame 
of  his  being  an  ill  husband,  and  leave  his  first  calling  to 
labor,  for  to  leave  over  to  be  a  good  thriving  fellow.  I 
used  him  so  still,  though  other  civil  service,  washing 
among.  It  is  commonly  spoken  that  Fynch  of  Woodend 
and  Guaram  are  joint  companions  in  all  ill  fellowship. 
Use  them  thereafter,  and  take  no  luck  by  such.  You 
and  your  brother  have  taken  much  discredit  by  not 
judging  wisely  and  rightly  of  those;  yea,  both  of  you, 
over-credit  to  your  willing  hinderance.  I  pray  the  Lord 
give  you  both  good  understanding  by  His  word  arid  spirit, 
and  health  to  serve  Him  in  truth,  to  your  good  estima- 
tion, with  increase  of  His  blessed  favor.  Let  not  your 
men  be  privy  hereof.  As  your  good  mother,  I  thus 
certify.  Think  of  it. 

Your  mother, 

A.  B. 

Use  your  legs  betimes,  for  fear  of  losing  by  disuse. 

Good  Rolf  was  here  to-day  to  speak  with  me,  and  very 
sadly  said  thus  to  me,  that  he  had  before  now,  and  pres- 
ently again  did  hear  that  his  farm  should  be  let  from 
him  ;  whereupon  his  ancient  wife  and  he  both  were  much 


378  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  grieved.  I  told  him  I  never  heard  any  tittle  of  it,  and 
•H- 9-  thought  it  was  nothing ;  so  it  will  be  worse,  I  wis,  for 
you  to  make  a  change  for  Humphrey.  He  hopes  you 
will  at  least  let  him  tarry  iij  years  longer  after  his  present 
state.  Finished  scamblers  are  easily  had  everywhere,  but 
discreet,  honest,  sufficient  farmers  would  be  continued ; 
they  serve  the  country  and  countenance  their  landlord 
indeed.  Guaram  will  prove  stark  naught  if  you  suffer 
him  to  let  the  ground  from  Pleatah  farm ;  you  are  mar- 
vellously abused  by  him  and  misled ;  some  in  my  house 
are  too  often  with  him.  I  will  look  better  to  them  for  it. 
Yet  by  them  I  hear  of  these  his  naughty  doings,  both  for 
himself  and  you.  God  be  with  you,  and  make  you  able 
to  every  good  duty,  and  guide  you  all  ways  to  your  com- 
fort. God  knows  when  I  shall  see  you.  I  am  therefore 
more  careful  to  advertise  you  to  beware.  Remember 
Groome  I  pray  you.  Brocket  will  make  jest  of  us  both. 
Keep  not  superfluous  servants  to  mar  them  with  idleness 
and  undo  you.  Let  Large  live  at  home  ;  best  for  him,  a 
married  man.  Nobody  see  this,  but  burn  it,  or  send  it 
back ;  and  so  commend  you  to  the  Lord. 

n- 10-  LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  651,  fol.  65.) 

April  1,  1595. 
SON, — 

Woodward  told  me  you  required  a  hogshead  of  beer. 
I  will,  if  it  please  God  I  come  well  and  in  time  home 
to-morrow,  1  will  send  you  one  by  the  cart  of  my  best 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        379 

ordinary  beer  ;  the  rest  remaining  is  March.     1  pray  you     APP. 
let  me  have  another  hogshead  for  it.     1  shall  lack  else  ;    IL  10- 
and  let  one  be  ready  with  a  car,  because  of  double  jum- 
bling.    I  think,  well  used,  you  may  drink  it  after  five 
days'  settling  at  least ;  but  that,  as  you  see,  being  above 
iiij  months  old,  after  it  is  broached  it  will  not  last  above  a 
fortnight  because  of  turning. 

This  bearer  I  have  newly  taken  into  my  house. 

A.  B. 

LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  n.  n. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  657,  fol.  64.) 

Gorhambmy,  April,  3,  1596. 

I  thank  you  for  your  horses.  I  send  you  a  hogshead 
of  November  beer,  methinks  good,  and  a  barrel  also  of 
the  same  brewing  which  I  did  cause  the  brewer  then  to 
tun  of  the  first  tap  of  the  same  brewing,  and  so  strong, 
because  at  that  time  it  was  thought  you  would  come  to 
Redburn,  and  I  meant  it  to  you :  it  is  so  strong  as  I 
would  not  drink  ordinarily  to  my  meals,  but  do  you  use 
it  to  your  most  good ;  in  any  wise,  when  these  two  vessels 
be  empty  let  them  be  returned  by  the  cart.  I  cannot 
want  [do  without]  them  indeed,  and  they  be  strong, 
besides  divers  other  vessels  of  mine  sent  to  your  sundry 
places.  I  did  at  one  time  send  six  together,  if  not  seven, 
to  Redburn,  and  I  paid  viis.  for  heading  and  hooping  and 
seasoning  of  them  ;  howsoever  they  made  you  pay  after- 
ward. I  did  so  in  truth.  I  pray  remember  Groom's 
ill  handling,  and  curb  it  well  for  all  his  naughty  and 


380  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.     tippling  mates.     I  wrong  my  men,  living  well  and  Chris- 

IL  n-    tianly  in  their  honest  vocation,  to  suffer  them  to  be  ill 

entreated  and  myself  contemned  ;  I  mean  not  so.    Crosby 

purposeth  to  be  with  you  on  Monday  if  God  will,  and 

your  corn  ready. 

Your  mother, 

A.  B. 

Yesterday,  seeing  my  sister  Russell  at  the  Blackfriars 
house,  after  the  sermon,  I  found  her  very  much  grieved, 
and  her  words  charging  my  Lord  Treasurer  of  very  un- 
kind dealing  in  a  matter  very  chargeable  to  [her] ,  and  a 
slight  end  procured,  she  said  to  her  hurt,  with  tears  on 
account  of  him.  I  saw  her  so  lamenting,  I  said  I  would 
write  to  Sir  Robert  Cecil.  "  No,  no,"  said  she  ;  "  it  is 
too  late  ;  he  hath  marred  all,  and  that  against  my  coun- 
sel's liking  at  all."  But  [do]  not  you  nor  your  brother 
intermeddle  in.it  nor  be  a  knowing  of  it.  I  pray  you 
show  your  brother  this,  and  let  him  not  take  knowledge 
lest  you  both  set  on  work  ;  and  for  that  HOWARD,  once 
again  be  very  ware  as  of  a  subtle  serpent.  Burn  all,  for 
fear  of  the  servants.  Be  not  hasty  to  remove.  Your 
drink  well  used,  and  not  set  abroach  all  at  once,  above 
the  bung  first,  then  by  degrees  lower  once  or  twice,  will 
be  better  and  last  long,  saith  the  brewer.  York  House 
lease  is  not  here,  as  I  said  to  my  cousin  Kemp.  Mr. 
Bayley  hath  seen  every  place  purposely  to  satisfy  my 
Lord  Keeper.  I  do  not  remember  that  ever  I  saw  any 
lease  from  the  Bishop  sealed,  but  by  parley  and  trust 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        381 

betwixt  both.     Farewell.     The  brewer,  who  is  now  here,    APP. 
saith  that  your  beer  now  sent,  well  handled,  will  drink    n- ll- 
well  a  month's  space.      Let  not  your  servants  beguile 
you  secretly  or  openly.     Use  your  legs  in  any  wise  and 
daily,  lest  they  fail  you  when  you  would  ;  neglect  not  in 
time,  and  serve  the  Lord  with  all  your  heart. 

LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  n.  12. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  651,  fol.  102.) 

May  15, 1595. 

Grace,  and  the  love  of  the  Lord  in  Christ.  —  Your 
beer,  well  handled  I  trust,  is  meant  to  be  sent  to-morrow 
early.  The  brewer  hath  been  careful  himself.  I  had  no 
brewing,  I  dare  say  these  twelve  months,  more  diligently 
attended  upon  of  my  servants  ;  if  the  carriers  do  their 
part,  and  all  were  well  watched  and  looked  to  in  the 
cellar,  it  is  thought  for  your  own  special  use  it  will  last 
till  nigh  Michaeltide,  both  for  quantity  and  quality.  As 
you  appointed  it  is  brewed,  8  hogsheads  in  all,  and  of  the 
chiefest  beer  2  hogsheads,  marked  with  an  S  on  each 
side  of  the  wheel  mark ;  the  third,  somewhat  less  strong, 
being  a  second,  is  marked,  likewise  with  chalk,  with  a 
smaller  wheel-mark,  and  one  only  S,  by  it  to  know  it 
rightly.  All  the  other  five  alike.  God  give  you  the 
right  use  of  all  His  gifts  to  God's  glory  and  your  own 
farther  advancement  and  true  comfort. 

The  rowelled  horse  I  had  no  mind  to  indeed,  nor  the 
horse  Master  Spencer  rode  on.  Lawson  thrust  in  here 
his  and  others  smuttled  and  spoiled  beast.  The  horse  is 


382  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  full  of  windgalls,  a  token  of  very  spoiling  in  riding 
D- 12.  an(j  dressing.  Grass  is  here  yet  but  poor  and  scant, 
and  I  must  turn  out  shortly  my  two  service  geldings  of 
necessity.  I  will  not  change  my  own  faulty  husband's 
horse  for  yours,  both  heavy  and  stumbling,  and  never 
broken  for  such  a  toward  horse  when  you  first  had  him. 
Diverse  of  my  folk  now  sickly.  God  increase  your 
health  I  pray  God,  and  be  merciful  to  us  both. 

I  thank  you  for  your  comely  mastiff;  it  is  supposed 
he  will  hunt   after   sheep  ;  he  is   too  old ;  I  durst  not 

prove  him  yet. 

Your  mother, 

A.  BACON. 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  657,  fol.  144.) 

3  June,  1595. 

SON, — 

You  had  a  mind  to  have  the  long  carpet  and  the 
ancient  learned  philosopher's  picture  from  hence  ;  but, 
indeed,  I  had  no  mind  thereto,  yet  have  I  sent  them, 
very  carefully  bestowed  and  laid  in  a  hamper  for  safety 
in  carriage. 

For  the  carpet,  being  without  gold,  you  shall  not  I 
think  have  the  like  at  this  time  in  London,  for  the 
right,  and  not  painted,  colors ;  which  is  too  common  in 
this  age  in  more  things  than  carpets,  and  such  it  is  for 
all  not  of  late  bought  worth  you  to  buy.  Such  imple- 
ments as  your  father  left  I  have  very  diligent  locked 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        383 

in  and  kept.  You  have  now  bared  this  house  of  all  APF. 
the  best ;  a  wife  would  have  well  regarded  such  things,  **•  13- 
but  now  they  shall  serve  for  use  of  gaming  or  tippling 
upon  the  table  of  every  common  person,  your  own  men 
as  well  as  others,  and  so  be  spoiled  as  at  Redburn.  I 
would  think  that  John,  your  tailor,  should  be  fittest 
to  look  well  to  your  furniture.  God,  I  humbly  beseech 
Him,  increase  in  you  daily  spiritual  store,  and  also  the 
comfort  of  bodily  health  and  other  comforts  of  this 
life  to  his  own  good  pleasure,  to  whose  fatherly  love 
in  Christ  I  commend  you. 

I  wish  the  hamper  were  not  opened  till  yourself  were 
at  Chelsea,  to  see  it  done  before  you ;  for  the  pictures 
are  put  orderly  within  the  carpet.  You  have  one  long 
carpet  already.  I  cannot  think  what  use  this  should 
be.  It  will  be  an  occasion  of  mockery  that  you  should 
have  a  great  chamber,  called  and  carpeted.  What  I 
say  is  not  foolish.  Draw  no  charge  till  God  better  en- 
able you  ;  but  observe  narrowly  both  for  your  health 
and  purse.  Surely  your  vis  beer  is  no  ordinary  drink 
for  your  house  no  time  of  the  year  specially,  and  usually 
too  strong  for  you ;  but  Podagra  will  bestir  him.  See- 
ing God  hath  given  you  some  good  abilities,  I  would, 
I  trow,  watch  over  my  diet  and  everything  to  put  them 
in  use  by  health  to  God's  glory  and  your  own  more 
credit. 

If  her  Majesty  have  resolved  upon  the  negative  for 
your  brother,  as  I  hear,  truly,  save  for  the  brust  a  little, 
I  am  glad  of  it.  God,  in  His  time,  hath  better  in  store 


384  FRANCIS   BACON. 

API>.  I  trust.  For,  considering  his  kind  of  health  and  what 
II.  13.  cumber  pertains  to  that  office,  it  is  best  for  him  I  hope. 
Let  us  all  pray  the  Lord  we  make  us  to  profit  by 
His  fatherly  correction ;  doubtless  it  [is]  His  hand, 
and  all  for  the  best,  and  love  to  His  children  that  will 
seek  him  first,  and  depend  upon  his  goodness.  Godly 
and  wisely  love  ye  like  brethren,  whatsoever  [happen], 
and  be  of  good  courage  in  the  Lord  with  good  hope. 

Farewell !  take  diligent  heed  of  your  health ;  be  master 
of  yourself  and  act  most  prudently. 

Your  mother, 

A.  BACON,  Widow. 

Do  not  readily  relinquish  or  grant  your  town  house  to 
any  one. 

H- 14-  LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  667,  fol.  203.) 

Gorhambury,  July  30,  1695. 

I  most  humbly  thank  God  and  much  rejoiced  when 
I  heard  by  Crosby  you  do  more  exercise  your  body  and 
your  legs,  and  that  in  your  course  you  go  to  the  Earl 
yourself  at  occasions ;  surely  soon,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
you  shall  find  great  help  by  bodily  exercise  in  season, 
and  much  refreshing  both  to  body  and  mind,  and  be 
more  accepted  of.  I  would  advise  you  went  sometimes 
to  the  French  church,  and  have  there,  and  bash  not  your 
necessaries  for  warmth  to  hear  the  public  preaching  of 
the  word  of  God,  as  it  is  His  own  ordinance,  and,  armed 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        385 

so  with  prayer  for  understanding,  it  maketh  the  good     AI-P. 
hearers  wise  to  God,  and  enables  them  to  discern  how  to    IL  14 
walk  in  their  worldly  vocation,  to  please  God,  and  to  be 
accepted  of  man,  indeed,  which  God  grant  to  you  both. 

Truly,  son,  the  miller's  last  coming  to  you  was  but  of 
a  craft  to  color  his  halting  touching  his  secret  consenting 
to  steal,  as  cause  hath  been  given  to  suspect  him,  not 
lately  alone,  but  long:  he  waxeth  a  subtle  fellow,  and 
hath  a  cunning  head  of  his  own,  now  he  goeth  with  meal 
to  London  and  to  some  other  places  hereabout,  and  will 
inar  the  mill,  I  doubt,  by  his  flitting.  "Wherefore  should 
he  have  a  net  ?  himself  confessed  about  the  scouring  of 
the  mill,  but  lately,  that  there  was  store  of  trout,  and 
now  almost  none,  because  Bun  and  others  did  lately  rob, 
as  you  know.  I  took  the  miller's  part  in  defending  his 
right  dealing,  and  so  the  justices  have  bound  Bun  to 
good  a-bearing  till  next  sessions  ;  but  that  same  Bun  said 
earnestly  that  the  miller  could  join  and  bear  with  some, 
and  he  could  abide  by  it,  and  so  hath  Mr.  Coltman  said 
when  I  have  blamed  him  but  for  angling.  Certainly,  son, 
where  he  bringeth  you,  though  I  would  they  were  more 
for  you,  he  carrieth  to  Mr.  Preston  and  others  twice  as 
many,  but  say  yet  not  so  to  him.  I  mean  to  take  his  net 
from  him,  he  is  waxen  so  heady,  new-fangled,  that  the 
mill  goeth  to  wreck,  and  customers  begin  to  mislike  and 
to  forsake  it,  which  will  hinder  our  living  and  discon- 
tinue it.  I  will  cause  Humphrey  to  be  paid  as  you  order 
with  Crosby ;  surely  set  aside  my  poor  mortmain,  but 
200/.,  or  little  above,  a  small  portion  for  my  continuance. 
17  Y 


386  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.  I  thank  the  Lord  for  all :  spending  money  goeth  but  from 
hand  to  mouth,  as  they  say,  with  me.  I  gave  your  brother 
at  twice  25Z.  for  his  paling,  the  rather  to  cheer  him  since 
he  had  nothing  of  me.  Crosby  told  me  he  looked  very 
ill ;  he  thought  he  taketh  still  inward  grief ;  I  fear  it  may 
hinder  his  health  hereafter.  Counsel  to  be  godly  wise 
first,  and  wise  for  himself  too,  and  both  of  you  look  to 
your  expenses  in  time,  and  oversee  those  you  trust  how 
trustily,  for  I  tell  you  plainly  it  hath  been  long  common- 
ly observed  that  both  your  servants  are  full  of  money. 

My  Lord  Chief  Baron's  marriage  with  your  sister  1 
never  [had]  any  inkling  of  before  Crosby  told.  I  pray 
at  your  leisure  write  to  me  some  circumstance  of  the 
manner,  and  God  bless  it.  I  send  "Winter  purposely, 
because  you  should  not  send  your  boy.  Gorhambury, 
penultima  of  July. 

Your  mother, 

A.   B. 

Nobody  but  yourself  see  my  letters,  I  pray  you. 
After  harvest  some  venison  would  do  well  here.     God 
bless  you  daily  with  good  increase. 


II.  15.  LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  651,  fol.  211.) 

7  of  Aug.  1595. 

For  your  bottles  I  thank  you.     The  malmsey  I  tasted 
a  little  ;  very  good.     Humphrey  shall,  God  willing,  be 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        387 

answered ;  but  with  a  sight  of  his  reckoning  he  asketh    APP. 
for  20  neats'  tongues  at  once,  not  very  seldom  neither ;    IL  15- 
for  Mr.  Barber  Crosby  will  go  within  these  3  days  to 
keep  your  credit  with  him,  and  such  is  a  very  Chris- 
tian duty.     Owe  nothing  to  any,  saith  the  Lord  in  his 
word,  but  to  love  one  another.     I  would  I  were  able 
to  help  you  both  out  of  debt ;    but  set  apart  my  poor 
mortmain,   which  I  certainly  have  vowed  for  any  ac- 
knowledgments to  God,  I  am  not  worth  100Z.     Yea  and 
specially  you  have  spent  me  quick ;  nothing  can  there- 
fore remain  after  I  am  dead.     God  bless  you  !     I  had  not 
sent  now  but  for  this  cause,  by  your  message  by  Wyn- 
ter.     The  two  countess  sisters  will  neighbor  you  ;  both 
ladies  that  fear   God   and  love  his  word  ;  indeed  zeal- 
ously, specially  the   younger  sister.     Yet  upon   advice 
and   some   experience,  I  would  earnestly  counsel  you 
to  be  wary  and   circumspect,   and  not  to  be  too  open 
nor  willing  to  prolong  speech  with  the  Countess  of  War- 
wick.    She,  after  her  father's  fashion,  will  search   and 
sound  and  lay  up  with  diligence,  marking  things  which 
seem  not  courtly,  and  she  is  near  the  Queen,  and  fol- 
lows her  father's  example  too  much  in   that.     This  is 
the  cause  of  my  now  writing.     Another  matter  is,  that 
now  the  marriage  of  your  sister  is  well,  by  God's  appoint- 
ment, I  trust  [you]  use  not  such  broad  language  upon 
mislike   of   unkindness.      Your    men   and  others,  how 
peradventure  you  mark  not,  may  hurt  you  very  much. 
Surely  if  such  phrases  as  you  wrote  in  your  letter  or 
such  deriding  should  come  to  his  ear,  it  would  be  very 


388  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  hurtful  to  you  more  than  one  way,  which  you  need 
n- 15-  not,  being  never  abroad  amongst  them.  Your  sister's 
nature  is  but  unkind,  and  at  that  time  of  her  marriage 
could  not  herself  think  of  such  things.  I  pray  hearken 
to  him  with  all  courtesy  ;  he  is  of  marvellous  good 
estimation  for  his  religious  mind  in  following  his  law- 
calling  uprightly ;  beware,  therefore,  in  words  and  deeds 
and  speeches  at  table  before  him.  There  is  scarce  any 
fidelity  in  servants.  I  write  more  hereof,  because  others 
write  your  letters  and  not  yourself. 

I  am  sorry  your  brother  with  inward  secret  grief  hin- 
dereth  his  health.  Everybody  saith  he  looketh  thin  and 
pale.  Let  him  look  to  God  and  confer  with  Him  in 
godly  exercise  of  hearing  and  reading,  and  continue  to 
be  noted  to  take  care :  I  had  rather  ye  both,  with  God's 
blessed  favor,  had  very  good  healths  and  were  well  out 
of  debt,  than  any  office.  Yet,  though  the  Earl  showed 
great  affection,  he  marred  all  with  violent  'courses.  I 
pray  God  increase  his  fear  in  his  heart  and  a  hatred 
of  sin ;  indeed,  halting  before  the  Lord  and  backsliding 
are  very  pernicious.  I  am  heartily  sorry  to  hear  how  he 
[the  Earl  of  Essex]  sweareth  and  gameth  unreasonably 
God  cannot  like  it.  I  pray  show  your  brother  this  letter, 
but  to  no  creature  else.  Remember  me  and  yourself. 

Your  mother, 

A.  B. 

Gorharabury,  5th  August,  '95. 

With  a  humble  heart  before  God,  let  your  brother  be 
of  good  cheer.  Alas  !  what  excess  of  bucks  at  Gray's 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        389 

Inn,  and  to  feast  it  on  the  Sabbath.     God  forgive  and    AFP. 
have  mercy  upon  England  !  II- 15. 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  n.  16. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  652,  fol.  86.) 

Gorhambury,  Oct.  21, 1595. 

Since  it  so  pleaseth  God,  comfort  your  brother  kindly 
and  Christianly,  and  let  me,  mother,  and  you,  both  my 
sons,  look  up  to  the  correcting  hand  of  God  in  your 
wants  every  way,  with  humble  hearts  before  Him,  and 
with  comfort,  and  procure  your  health  by  good  means 
carefully.  If  I  did  not  warily  sustain  and  abstain,  I 
should  live  in  continual  pain  pitifully.  For  set  sickness, 
to  speak  of,  I  have  not  now,  I  thank  God,  but  very  cum- 
bersome troublous  accidents  to  keep  me  to  exercise  mor- 
tification. Remember,  her  Majesty  is,  they  say,  now  at 
Richmond.  God  preserve  her  from  all  evil,  and  rule  her 
heart  to  the  zealous  setting  forth  of  his  glory !  Want 
of  this  zeal  in  all  degrees  is  the  very  ground  of  our  hon- 
est trouble.  We  have  all  dallied  with  the  Lord,  who  will 
not  ever  suffer  himself  to  be  mocked.  I  send  you  xij  pig- 
eons, my  last  flight,  and  one  ringdove  beside,  and  a  black 
coney  taken  by  John  Knight  this  day,  and  pigeons,  too, 
to-day.  Lawrence  can  tell  you  my  Lady  Stafford's 
speech  was  of  you,  as  she  hath  heard  from  her  Majesty 
marvelling  you  came  not  to  see  her  in  so  long  space. 
Consider  well  and  wisely  ;  for  I  sent  him  to  her  to  know 
of  her  Majesty's  good  estate  to  Nonsuch,  according  to  my 


890  FRANCIS   BACON. 

Apr.  duty,  and  to  Mr.  Doctor  Smith.  He  came  not  home  by 
II.  16.  London,  as  I  bade  him :  do  what  you  may  for  health, 
piously  and  diligently,  out  of  question.  Where  you  be 
you  must  needs  disorder  your  time  of  diet  and  quiet ; 
want  of  which  will  still  keep  you  in  lame  and  uncomfort- 
able. I  hear  the  Lord  Howard  is  too  often  with  you.  He 
is  subtilely  deceitful.  Beware  !  beware  !  Burn  this.  The 
Lord  of  heaven  bless  you  from  heaven,  in  Christ  our  Lord 

and  hope. 

Your  mother, 

A.  BACON. 
Burn,  I  pray,  but  read  well  first. 


n.  17.  LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  657,  fol.  113.) 

Gorhambury,  June  15,  1596. 

By  the  good  hand  of  the  Lord  I  am  come  well  to 
Gorhambury,  where  I  find  my  household  well  and  in 
good  order.  I  thank  God  my  sister  my  Lady  Russell's 
coach  is  far  easier  than  either  of  yours,  and  her  man, 
a  comely  man  withal,  did  it  with  care  and  very  well ; 
and  your  brother's  footman  did  very  diligently  go  by 
me.  Here  be  no  strawberries  nor  fish  to  send ;  and  for 
beer,  son,  I  have  none  ordinary  under  five  weeks,  at 
least  above  a  month,  brewed  the  first  week  of  May,  which 
now  carried,  after  so  long  settling  and  in  the  heat  of 
summer,  must  needs  be  spoiled,  which  were  great  pity 
this  dearth  time.  Truly,  son,  as  yet  I  know  not  when 


LADY  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.        391 

to  brew,  by  my  provision  not  this  ij  weeks  at  least,  as  APP. 
well  as  for  vessels.  I  have  tierce  of  last  March  beer ;  a  17- 
but  surely,  being  yet  unripe  and  carried  this  heat,  it 
will  be  utterly  marred.  Paying  Mr.  Moore's  bill  for  my 
physic,  I  asked  him  whether  you  did  owe  anything  for 
physic  ?  He  said  he  had  not  reckoned  with  you  since 
Michaelmas  last.  Alas  !  why  so  long,  say  I  ?  I  think  I 
said  further  it  can  be  muted,  for  he  hath  his  confections 
from  strangers ;  and  to  tell  you  truly,  I  bade  him  secretly 
send  his  bill,  which  he  seemed  loth  but  at  my  pressing, 
when  I  saw  it  came  to  above  xv  I.  or  xvj  /.  If  it  had 
been  but  vij  or  viij,  I  would  have  made  some  shift  to 
pay.  I  told  him  I  would  say  nothing  to  you  because 
he  was  so  unwilling.  It  may  be  he  would  take  half 
willingly,  because  "  ready  money  made  always  a  cun- 
ning apothecary,"  said  covetous  Morgan,  as  his  proverb. 
For  Lange,  I  cannot  tell  what  you  would  have  me  do 
for  him:  he  finds  I  do  not  recompense  evil  with  evil. 
I  have  at  times  given  him,  he  knoweth ;  but  he  is  but 
whining,  and  a  companion  too  much  with  naughty 
Goodram,  though  not  at  Redborn,  but  to  his  hurt.  Let 
him  ply  his  labor,  in  God's  name,  and  not  a  busybody 
and  secret  quarrel-picker,  as  he  is  partly  suspected.  I 
use  charity  to  him,  though  I  like  not  his  crafty  sooth- 
ing nature.  With  thanks  for  your  horse  J.  C.  .  .  .  th 
heed  all  your  infirmities  to  your  comfort.  Be  zealous 
over  your  health.  Hours  sink  away  unseasonably. 

Farewell. 

Your  mother, 

A.  BACON. 


App. 
HI 


392  FRANCIS   BACON. 

No.  III. 

LADY  ANNE  BACON,  JUN.,  TO  HER  BROTHERS  FRANCIS 
AND  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  Lambeth  MSS.  648,  fol.  10.) 

Guilford,  16th  March,  1592. 

GOOD  BROTHERS, — 

Being  very  desirous  to  see  you  both  at  Redgrave,  and 
yet  loth  to  put  you  to  that  pain  which  might  by  my 
desire  impair  your  healths  by  entreating  your  repair  into 
this  country,  yet  can  I  not  refrain,  upon  this  occasion 
offered  of  the  marriage  of  my  daughter,  heartily  to  pray 
you  both  to  bestow  your  travels  to  Redgrave  to  the  same, 
where,  if  it  shall  please  (rod  so  to  dispose  of  your  busi- 
ness and  healths  as  I  may  see  you,  I  shall  think  myself 
greatly  beholden  to  you,  and  the  feast  greatly  honored 
by  your  presence.  I  hope  also  it  will  be  comfortable  to 
you,  both  in  rejoicing  with  my  husband  and  me  in  the 
action  itself,  and  also  in  the  intercourse  and  meeting  of 
many  good  friends  which  you  there  shall  see  and  meet 
with,  especially  your  brother  Anthony,  having  been  so 
long  absent  from  us  all,  and  by  that  means  have  not  seen 
sundry  of  those  good  friends  of  yours  which  I  hope  you 
shall  there  see.  The  day  is  appointed  to  be  on  the  Thurs- 
day, the  6th  of  April ;  and  even  so,  with  my  very  hearty 
commendations  to  you  both,  and  wishing  you  all  good  as 
to  myself,  I  cease  to  trouble  you. 

Your  very  loving  sister, 

ANNE  BACON. 


HIS   LETTERS.  393 

No.  IV.  App. 

IV  1 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THOMAS  PHILLIPS. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

SIR, — 

I  congratulate  your  return,  hearing  that  all  is  passed 
on  your  word.  Your  Mercury  is  returned,  whose  return 
alarmed  us  upon  some  great  matter  which  I  fear  he  will 
not  satisfy.  News  of  his  coming  came  before  his  own 
letter,  and  to  other  than  to  his  proper  street,  which 
maketh  me  desirous  to  satisfy  or  to  solve.  My  Lord  hath 
required  him  to  repair  to  me,  which,  upon  his  Lordship's 
and  my  own  letter  received,  I  doubt  not  but  he  will  with 
all  speed  perform,  when  I  pray  you  to  meet  him  if  you 
may,  that,  laying  our  heads  together,  we  may  maintain 
his  credit,  satisfy  my  Lord's  expectations,  and  procure 
some  good  fruit.  I  pray  thee  rather  spare  not  your  trav- 
ail, because  I  think  the  Queen  is  already  party  to  the 
advertisement  of  his  coming  over,  and,  in  some,  suspect, 
which  you  may  not  disclose  to  him.  So  I  wish  you  as 
myself,  this  15th  of  September,  1592. 

Your  ever  assured, 

FR.  BACON. 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THOMAS  PHILLIPS.  IV.  i>. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

[1593.] 

MR.  PHILLIPS,  — 

I  send  you  the  copy  of  my  letter  to  the  Earl  touching 
the  matter  between  us  proposed.    You  may  perceive  what 
17* 


394  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.  expectation  and  conceit  I  thought  good  to  imprint  into 
IV.  2.  mv  Lord,  both  of  yourself  and  of  this  particular  service. 
And  as  that  which  is  in  general  touching  yourself  I  know 
you  are  very  able  to  make  good,  so  in  this  beginning  of 
intelligence  I  pray  spare  no  care  to  conduct  the  matter  to 
sort  to  good  effect.  The  more  plainly  and  frankly  you 
shall  deal  with  my  Lord,  not  only  in  disclosing  particu- 
lars, but  in  giving  him  caveats  and  admonishing  him  of 
any  error  which  in  this  action  he  may  commit  (such  is 
his  Lordship's  nature),  the  better  he  will  take  it.  I  send 
you  also  his  letter,  which  appointeth  this  afternoon  for 
your  repair  to  him,  which  I  pray,  if  you  can,  perform  ; 
although,  if  you  are  not  fully  resolved  of  any  circum- 
stance, you  may  take  a  second  day  for  the  rest,  and  show 
his  Lordship  the  party's  letter.  If  your  business  suffer 
you  not  to  attend  their  Lordships  to-day,  then  excuse  it 
by  two  or  three  words  in  writing  to  his  Lordship,  and  offer 

another  time. 

In  haste,  your  ever  assured, 

FR.  BACON. 

Whereas  I  mention  in  my  letter  an  intelligence  stand- 
ing in  Spain  of  my  brothers,  I  pray  take  no  knowledge  at 
all  thereof. 

IV.  3.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THOMAS  PHILLIPS. 

(Orig.  State  Paper  Office.) 

[1593.] 

MR.  PHILLIPS,  — 

I  have  excused  myself  of  this  progress,  if  that  be  to 
excuse  to  take  liberty  where  it  is  not  given.  Being  how 


HIS  LETTERS.  395 

at  Twickenham,  I  am  desirous  of  your  company.     You     APP. 
may  stay  as  long  and  as  'little  while  as  you  will ;  the    Iv- 3- 
longer   the'  better  welcome.     Otia    colligunt    mentem? 
And,   indeed,  I  would  be   the  wiser  by  you  in  many 
things,  for  that  I  call  to  confer  with  a  man  of  your  ful- 
ness.    In  sadness  come,  as  you  are  an  honest  man.     So 
I  wish  you  all  good.     From  Twickenham  Park  this  14th 
of  August. 

Yours,  ever  assured, 

FR.  BACON. 
FRANCIS  BACON  TO  HIS  AUNT  COOKE.  IV.  4 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  649,  p.  237.) 

Windsor  Castle,  29  Oct.,  1593. 

AUNT,  — 

I  had  spoken  a  good  while  since  with  my  Lord-Treas- 
urer, whose  Lordship  took  pains  to  peruse  the  will  which 
I  had  with  me,  and  in  conversation  was  of  opinion  that, 
if  the  younger  children  wanted  reasonable  allowance,  it 
should  be  supplied,  and  the  other  parties  to  be  stored  for 
their  advancement :  of  the  same  mind  I  ever  was  and  am, 
and  there  is  nothing  in  my  cousin  Morise's  note  against. 
Accordingly  I  have  enclosed  a  note,  of  a  proportion 
which  I  think  you  cannot  dislike,  and  which  I  pray 
communicate  with  my  cousin  Morise  and  the  rest  of 
the  executors.  For  my  part,  I  wish  you  as  a  kind  alli- 
ance. But  the  question  is  not  between  you  and  me,  but 
between  your  profit  and  my  trust.  I  purpose  as  soon  as 
I  can  conveniently  to  put  the  money  I  have  into  some 


396  FRANCIS   BACON. 

App.     other  hands,  lest  you  think  the  case  of  the  money  pre- 
JV-  4-.  vaileth  with  me  ;  but  I  will  endure  in  a  good  cause,  and 
wish  I  you  right  well. 

In  haste,  your  loving  nephew, 

FRA.  BACON. 

IV.  5.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  SIR  THOMAS  CONINGSBY. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  Vol.  649,  p.  236.) 

[Oct.  1593.] 
MY   VERY   GOOD    COUSIN, — 

Whereas  this  gentleman,  Mr.  Nicholas  Trot,  one  to 
whom,  besides  familiar  acquaintance,  I  am  much  be- 
holden, hath  conveyed  unto  him  for  his  money  a  lease 
of  the  prebend  of  Withington,  under  the  title  of  Mr. 
Heyghton,  that  was  sometimes  of  the  counsel  of  the 
Marches,  a  man  not  like  to  have  been  overreached  in  his 
bargains,  against  the  which  one  "Wallwyne  claimeth  by  a 
former  deed  of  gift,  supposed  to  be  forged  and  appearing 
to  be  fraudulent,  because  the  same  party  undertook  after- 
wards to  sell  it,  and  his  interest  hath  been  quietly  missed 
by  twenty  years'  space,  I  am  earnestly  to  recommend  the 
assistance  of  this  my  friend,  according  to  the  equity  of 
the  cause,  to  your  good  favor,  whereof  there  will  be  the 
more  need,  both  because  he  is  a  stranger  in  the  country, 
and  because  the  adverse  party,  as  I  understand,  hath  used 
force  about  the  possession  ;  and  therefore,  good  cousin, 
let  him  use  your  experience  and  careful  countenance  for 
direction  and  help,  according  to  that  good  affection  which 


HIS   LETTERS.  397 

I  persuade  myself  you  bear  me,  and  which  I  am  ready  to     APP. 
answer  in  all  kindness.     And  so  I  wish  you  as  Iv-  5- 

Your  assured  loving  cousin, 

FR.  BACON,  <fec. 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  SIR  FRANCIS  ALLEN.  IV.  6. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  649,  309.) 

Edborne,  this  25th  of  December,  1593. 

.  SIR, — 

I  accept  with  all  kindness  and  thanks  possible  the 
demonstrations  you  make  from  time  to  time  of  a  sincere 
affection  and  singular  respect  towards  me,  namely,  in 
your  last  letter  to  myself,  and  approve  wholly  yours  to 
my  brother,  even  to  the  least  and  last  tittle  thereof,  wish- 
ing as  a  brother,  for  his  own  sake,  that  he  had  had  but 
half  as  good  a  ground  and  reason  for  his  demand  as  you 
have  for  your  answer.  Protesting  unto  you  with  a  sin- 
cerity very  present  to  the  merit  of  your  own  touching  me 
without  prejudice,  that  the  scanty  link  of  German  con- 
sanguinity should  never  have  prevailed  so  far  with  me  as 
to  have  once  moved  me  to  have  given  my  clear  consent 
to  my  brother  for  such  his  request  or  recommendation. 
Touching  your  particular  business.  I  will  not  fail,  by 
God's  grace,  in  my  next  to  our  most  honorable  Earl,  to 
perform  my  uttermost,  and  will  not  forget  to  acknowl- 
edge to  our  good  friend  Mr.  Staiiden,  that  whatsover 
iriendly  office  he  shall  have  rendered  by  his  assistance  to 
do  to  you,  that  same  is  done  to  myself.  And  so,  with 
most  hearty  wishes  of  your  health  and  contentment,  I 


398  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.     commit  you  to  the  protection  of  the  Almighty,  remaining 
1V-  6-    always  inviolably 

Your  most  entire  friend  and  servant, 

F.  B. 

IV.  7.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  SIR  FRANCIS  ALLEN. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  649,  310.) 

Hampton  Court,  Dec.  20,  1593. 

SIR  FRANCIS  ALLEN, — 

I  do  so  much  favor  this  gentleman,  Mr.  Garret,  who 
from  my  praise  entered  a  course  of  following  the  wars, 
which  hath  succeeded  unto  him  as  to  his  good  commen- 
dations, so  yet  nevertheless  not  hitherto  to  his  settling 
in  any  place  answerable  to  his  desert  and  profession.  In 
regard  whereof,  understanding  of  the  nomination  and 
appearance  of  employment  in  Ireland,  he  concciveth  it 
will  be  some  establishment  to  him  if  he  may  receive  your 
favor,  being  by  you  accepted  in  the  place  of  your  lieu- 
tenant, your  own  virtue  and  reputation  answered,  and 
the  uncertainty  of  the  French  employment.  Of  his  proof 
and  sufficiency  to  serve  I  write  the  less  because  I  take  it 
to  be  well  known  to  yourself,  but  for  my  particular  I  do 
assure  you  I  can  hardly  imagine  a  matter  wherein  you 
shall  more  effectually  tie  me  unto  you  than  in  this.  I 
wished  him  to  use  me  but  as  a  mean  of  my  brother's 
commendation,  which  I  esteemed  to  be  of  extraordinary 
weight  with  you.  But  because  this  was  the  readier  and 
that  the  entireness  between  my  brother  and  myself  is 


HIS   LETTERS.  399 

well  known  to  you,  he  desired  to  begin  with  this.     Thus     An-. 
I  wish  you  all  protection.  IV.  7. 

Yours  in  unfeigned  good  affection, 

F.  BACON. 

I  was  sorry  to  hear  from  Mr.  Anthony  Standen  so 
sharply  and  unseasonably  you  were  afflicted  by  the  gout. 
But  you  have  of  him  a  careful  solicitor,  and  if  I  can 
come  in  to  him  with  any  good  endeavor  of  mine,  you  may 
reckon  of  it. 


FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  MASTERS  OF  REQUESTS.  iv  H. 

(Orig.  in  the  Record  Office.) 

[?1593.] 

After  my  hearty  commendations.  At  the  request  of 
this  bearer,  Mr.  Edward  Cottwin,  an  ancient  follower  and 
well-wilier  to  my  name  and  family,  I  have  considered  of 
a  suit  of  his  depending  before  you  for  the  recovery  of 
certain  rents  due  unto  him  for  divers  years  past,  and 
detained  from  him  only  upon  a  strained  construction  of 
extreme  law.  And  finding  the  honesty  of  the  man  and 
the  equity  of  his  cause  to  deserve  favor,  considering  that 
the  main  matter  (which  is  the  sum  in  demand)  is  freely 
acknowledged,  I  could  do  no  less  than  recommend  him 
unto  your  good  discretions,  desiring  you  in  regard  of  his 
great  loss  and  troubles  to  afford  him,  that  which  you 
deny  to  no  man,  lawful  favor  and  expedition,  which  I 
shall  be  always  ready  thankfully  to  acknowledge  by  such 


400  FRANCIS  BACON. 

Apr.    friendly  offices  as  shall  fall  within  my  compass.     And  so 
IV.  8.   j  ieave  you  to  God's  safe  tuition. 

Resting  your  very  loving  friend, 

FR.- BACON. 

IV.  9.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  MR.  SKINNER. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  650, 143.) 

July  29,  1594. 

SIR,— 

I  hope  you  will  not  find  it  strange  nor  amiss  if  the  con- 
fidence I  have  in  your  kind  affection  makes  me  so  bold 
as  most  earnestly  to  request  you  to  pleasure  me  with  the 
loan  of  five  hundred  pounds  for  a  year.  My  occasion  to 
employ  the  same  presently  is  important.  My  meaning 
(though  I  say  it  myself)  is  entirely,  as  it  ought  to  be,  to 
satisfy  you  without  fail*  at  the  day,  and  your  assurance 
shall  be  my  brother  A.  Bacon's  and  my  own  bond. 

The  occasion,  my  good  cousin,  and  my  meaning  being 
by  you  believed,  as  I  assure  myself  they  shall  and  most 
heartily  pray  they  may  you,  I  cannot  doubt  of  the  friend- 
ly assistance  of  my  request  as  a  form  of  assurance,  but 
look  for  such  a  special  favor  at  your  hands,  which  I  shall 
be  always  ready  and  glad  to  acknowledge  when  and 
wherein  soever  it  shall  please  you  to  employ  my  true 
good  will  and  sincere  affection.  And  so  desiring  your 
answer,  which  I  hope  shall  be  no  less  to  my  contentment 
than  my  resolution  of  full  acknowledgment  to  yours,  I 
commit  you  to  the  protection  of  the  Almighty, 

And  rest  your  entire  loving  cousin  to  use, 

F.  B. 


HIS   LETTERS.  401 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  MR.  YOUNG.  Apr. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  650,  186.) 

Gray's  Inn,  Sept.  2, 1594. 

MR.  YOUNG, — 

I  shall  desire  your  friendly  pains  in  the  repairing  and 
punishing  of  an  outrage  offered  by  one  Thomas  Lewys, 
dwelling  near  Whitechapel,  upon  a  French  gentleman  of 
very  good  quality  and  honorable,  and  my  special  ac- 
quaintance, and  upon  his  company,  not  in  terms  alone, 
but  in.  very  furious  assailing  them.  My  request  to  you  is 
the  rather  for  the  good  report  of  our  nation,  whither  this 
gentleman  is  come  only  for  his  own  satisfaction  and  ex- 
perience, that  he  may  have  experience  of  the  good  policy 
amongst  us  in  correcting  such  insolences,  specially  upon 
strangers  of  his  respect.  And  therefore  desire  you  so 
great  an  abuse  may  be  examined  and  corrected.  And  so 
in  haste  I  wish  you  very  well. 

Your  very  loving  friend, 

FR.  BACON. 

The  French  gentleman's  name  is  Mr.  Corugues,  sou 
to  the  principal  treasurer  of  Guienne,  and  this  bearer 
shall  relate  to  you  the  particularities  of  the  abuse. 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON.  IV.  ll. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  650,  227.) 

Gray's  Inn,  Dec.  10,  1594'. 

BROTHER,  — 

I  moved  you  to  join  with  me  in  security  for  600/., 
which  I  did  purpose  then  decidedly  to  have  taken  up ; 

z 


402  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.  300/.  odd  secure,  and  200Z.  by  way  of  forbearance,  both 
IV.  11.  to  £]ie  satisfaction  of  Peter  Van,  our  servant.  I  thank 
you,  you  assented.  I  have  now  agreed  with  Peter  for  the 
taking  up  of  the  whole  of  one  man's,  according  to  which 
I  send  you  the  bonds  and  securities.  You  shall  find  the 
bond  to  be  of  600/.,  which  is  one  hundred  more  than  it 
was  at  first.  The  jewel  cost  500?.  and  odd,  as  shall  ap- 
pear to  you  by  my  bond.  Next  I  send  you  immediately 
for  use  an  agreement,  so  to  free  you  of  one  hundred,  for 
which  you  stand  bound  to  Mr.  Willis  Fleet  wood.  So  in 
haste  I  commend  you  to  God's  good  preservation. 
Your  entire  loving  brother, 

FR.  BACON. 

IV.  12.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  ANTHONY  BACON. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  650,  237.) 

[Dec.  1594.] 

GOOD  BROTHER, — 

If  you  leave  the  matter  to  me,  I  am  like  both  to  deal 
with  my  Lord  of  Essex  in  it,  attending  the  first  occa- 
sion, and  to  fortify  it  otherwise,  as  I  will  hereafter  give 
you  account.  And  where  I  doubt,  acquaint  you  in 
particular  beforehand.  For  Mr.  Sugden,  I  had  rather 
have  brought  payment  than  allegation.  I  ever  doubt- 
ed the  resting  upon  [him]  would  come  to  nothing,  and 
I  desire  you  to  do  as  you  wish  ;  and  yet  I  will  en- 
deavor to  speed  my  part  nevertheless,  and  the  whole 
if  I  can. 

Mr.  Trott  I  have  desired  to  be  here  after  to-morrow 


HIS  LETTERS.  403 

to  see  her.    He  taketh  this  his  second  chance.    I  de-    APP. 
sired   Dr.   Hammond   to   visit  you   from   me,   whom  I  IV  12- 
was  glad  to  have  here,  he  being  a  physician,  and  my 
complaint  being  want  of  digestion. 

I  hope  by  this  Sir  Ant.  Perez  has  seen  the  Queen 
dance.  That  is  not  it,  but  her  distraction  of  body  to 
be  fresh  and  good,  I  do  pray  God  both  subjects  and 
strangers  may  long  be  witnesses  of.  I  would  be  sorry 
the  bride  and  bridegroom  should  be  as  the  weather 
hath  fallen  out:  thus,  it  goes  to  bed  fair,  and  rises 
lowering.  Thus  I  commend  you  to  God's  best  preser- 
vation. 

Your  entire  loving  brother, 

FR.  BACON. 
FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OP  SALISBURY.  IV.  1.3. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

[1607.] 
IT  MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  LORDSHIP, — 

• 

I  send  the  two  bills  according  to  your  Lordship's 
pleasure  signified  to  me,  hoping  your  Lordship  will  par- 
don me  that  they  come  not  precisely  at  the  hour.  The 
book  is  long  and  full  of  difficulty ;  and  a  business  such 
as  this  is,  I  do  not  much  trust  to  servants  or  prece- 
dents. I  found  it  more  convenient  to  put  one  pay- 
ment more  upon  the  Privy  Seal  than  your  Lordship 
directed,  and  to  take  it  from  the  rent ;  because  else, 
the  grant  must  have  been  for  ten  years  and  a  half, 
which  is  not  formal.  So  I  most  humbly  leave, 

And  rest  your  Lordship's  most  humble  and  bounden, 

F.  BACON. 


404  FRANCIS  BACON. 


APP.      FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OF  SALISBURY. 

IV.  14. 

(Orig.  in  the  State  Paper  Office.) 

•    28th  October,  1608. 
IT   MAY   PLEASE   YOUR  LORDSHIP, — 

According  to  your  Lordship's  warrant  on  the  15th 
of  June  last  I  made  a  book  ready  for  his  Majesty's  sig- 
nature to  the  use  of  Mrs.  Ellis  of  the  benefit  of  an  ex- 
tent of  the  lands  and  goods  of  Richard  Yonge  her 
father,  extended  for  a  debt  of  3,000/.  upon  recogni- 
zances ;  which  book  is  since  past  the  Great  Seal.  And 
now  having  received  order  from  your  Lordship  for 
amendment  of  the  defects  in  that  patent,  I  find  the 
case  to  be  thus :  That  she  has  since  discovered  two 
other  debts  of  record,  the  one  of  8,511/.  19s.  4d.,  the 
other  of  2,100/.,  remaining  upon  account  in  the  Pipe 
Office.  And  though  it  be  true  that  she  shall  reap  no 
benefit  by  the  former  grant,  except  these  debts  be  like- 
wise released,  on  regard  the  King  may  come  upon  the 
said  lands  and  goods  for  these  debts,  —  and  it  may  be 
the  meaning  was  in  Queen  Elizabeth  to  free  and  acquit 
Mr.  Yonge  of  all  debts ;  for  else  Quid  te  exempta  juvat 
spinis  de  pluribus  una  ?  —  yet  do  I  not  see  how  I  may 
pass  the  book  again,  with  a  release  of  these  two  debts, 
without  your  Lordship's  further  warrant,  which  I  hum- 
bly submit  to  your  honorable  consideration. 

Your  Lordship's  most  humble  and  bounden, 

FR.  BACON. 


HIS   LETTERS.  405 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OP  SALISBURY.  Apr. 

IV  1*» 

(Orig.  in  the  State  Paper  Office.) 

Gray's  Inn,  the  6th  of  July,  1609. 
IT  MAY   PLEASE   YOUR  LORDSHIP, — 

The  assurance  which  by  your  Lordship's  directions 
was  to  be  passed  to  his  Majesty  by  Richard  Forebenche, 
one  of  the  yeomen  of  the  guard  of  Potter's  Park,  within 
the  parish  of  Chertsey,  in  the  county  of  Surrey,  is  thor- 
oughly perfected  ;  so  if  your  Lordship  so  please  he  may 
receive  the  money  your  Lordship  agreed  to  pay  for  it. 
Your  Lordship's  most  humble  and  bounden, 

Fs.  BACON. 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OF  SALISBURY.  IV  1& 

(Orig.  in  the  State  Paper  Office.) 
IT  MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  GOOD   LORDSHIP, — 

Though  Mr.  Chancellor  and  we  rested  upon  the  old 
proclamation  which  Mr.  Attorney  brought  forth,  for  mat- 
ter of  transportation  of  gold  and  silver,  yet  because  I 
could  not  tell  whither  it  were  that  your  Lordship  looked 
for  from  us,  and  because  if  you  should  be  of  other  opin- 
ion things  might  be  in  readiness,  I  send  your  Lordship  a 
draught  of  a  new  proclamation,  wherein  I  have  likewise 
touched  the  point  of  change  in  that  manner  as  was  most 
agreeable  to  that  I  conceived  of  your  intent ;  the  French- 
man, after  I  had  given  him  a  day,  which  was  the  morrow 
after  your  Lordship's  departure,  never  attended  nor 
called  upon  the  matter  since.  Sir  Henry  Nevill  has  sen-t 


406  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.     up  a  solicitor  of  the  cause,  to  whom  I  perceive  by  Mr. 
I  \ .  16.  Calvert  your  Lordship  is  pleased  a  copy  of  his  answer 
when  it  shall  be  taken  may  be  delivered.     So,  praying 
for  your  good  health  and  happiness,  I  humbly  take  my 
leave  from  Gray's  Inn,  this  10th  of  August,  1609. 
Your  Lordship's  most  humble  and  bounden, 

Fs.  BACON. 

IV.  17.     FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OP  SALISBURY. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

Gray's  Lin,  the  13th  of  Sept.  1609. 
IT   MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  LORDSHIP,  — 

According  to  your  Lordship's  letter,  I  send  an  abstract 
of  the  bonds  and  conditions  touching  the  depopulation, 
whereby  it  will  appear  unto  your  Lordship  that  all  the 
articles  and  branches  of  the  condition  consist  only  of 
matter  of  reformation  in  the  country,  and  not  of  any 
benefit  to  the  King,  otherwise  than  that  the  forfeiture 
in  point  of  law  belongeth  to  his  Majesty  ;  but  then  the 
reformation  is  at  large.  So  I  very  humbly  take  my  leave. 
Your  Lordship's  most  humble  and  bounden, 

Fs.  BACON. 

IV.  18.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  SIR  JULIUS  CAESAR. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

August  23, 1610. 
IT   MAY  PLEASE   YOUR  HONOR, — 

In  answer  of  your  letter  of  the  second  of  this  present, 
but  not  delivered  to  my  hands  till  the  20th  thereof,  con- 


HIS   LETTERS.  407 

APP. 

cerning  Sir  Robert  Steward  his  petition  exhibited  to  his  iv.  is. 
Majesty  in  the  name  of  Edward  Williams,  for  the  new 
founding  of  the  Hospital  of  St.  John's  in  the  town  of 
Bedford,  I  have  examined  the  state  of  the  cause,  as  far 
as  information  may  be  expected  by  hearing  the  one  side  ; 
and  do  find :  That  this  hospital  passed  divers  years  since 
by  a  Patent  of  Concealment  to  Farneham,  from  whom 
the  petitioner  claimeth.  That  thereupon  suit  was  com- 
menced in  the  Exchequer,  wherein  it  seemeth  the  Court 
found  that  strength  in  the  King's  title,  as  it  did  order 
the  hospital  should  receive  a  new  foundation,  together 
with  divers  good  articles  of  establishment  of  the  good 
uses,  and  an  allowance  of  stipend  unto  the  master.  Nev- 
ertheless, I  find  not  this  order  to  be  absolute  or  merely 
judicial ;  but  in  the  nature  of  a  composition  or  agree- 
ment ;  and  yet  that  but  conditional :  for  it  directetli  a 
course  of  judicial  proceeding,  in  case  the  defendants  shall 
not  hold  themselves  to  the  agreement.  And  yet  notwith- 
standing this  order  had  this  life  and  pursuance,  as  I  find 
a  letter  from  the  Lord-Treasurer,  his  Lordship's  father, 
to  the  then  Attorney,  for  drawing  up  a  book  for  the  new 
foundation.  After  which  time  nothing  was  done  for 
aught  that  to  me  appeareth  :  no  patent  under  seal,  no 
stirring  of  the  possession,  no  later  order :  neither  doth  it 
appear  unto  me  likewise  in  whose  default  the  falling  off 
was.  But  now  of  late,  some  four  years  past,  and  about 
fourteen  years  after  the  former  order,  upon  information 
given  of  the  King's  right  to  the  late  Lord-Treasurer,  Earl 
of  Dorset,  his  Lordship  directed  a  sequestration  of  the 


408  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.  possession,  and  that  without  any  mention  of  these  former 
IV.  18.  proceedings  :  but  that,  being  as  it  seerneth  swiftly  granted, 
was  soon  after  by  his  Lordship  revoked.  The  pretenders 
unto  the  right  of  this  hospital  (with  whom  likewise  the 
possession  hath  gone)  are  as  it  seerneth  the  master  of  the 
hospital  (at  this  time  one  Dennis)  and  the  town  of  Bed- 
ford, who  claim  the  patronage  of  it.  But  in  what  state 
the  hospital  is  for  repair,  or  for  employment  according 
unto  the  good  uses,  or  for  government,  I  can  ground  no 
certificate.  And  therefore  it  may  please  you  to  signify 
unto  his  Lordship  as  well  the  state  of  the  cause  heretofore 
opened,  as  my  opinion,  which  is  that  it  were  great  pity 
that  this  hospital  should  continue  either  not  well  founded, 
or  not  well  employed,  the  rather  being  situate  in  so  pop- 
ulous and  poor  a  town  ;  and  that,  nevertheless,  herein 
some  consideration  may  be  had  of  the  patentee's  right ; 
but  for  the  present,  that  which  is  first  meet  to  be  done,  I 
conceive  to  be  that  the  other  party  be  heard ;  and  to  the 
end  to  avoid  a  tedious  suit  (which  must  be  defended  with 
the  moneys  that  should  go  to  the  sustenance  of  the  poor) , 
his  Lordship  may  be  graciously  pleased  to  direct  his  letters 
as  well  to  the  town  of  Bedford  as  to  the  present  incum- 
bent, that  they  do  attend  a  summary  hearing  of  this  cause 
(if  his  own  great  business  will  not  permit),  before  some 
other  that  he  shall  assign ;  in  which  letters  it  would  be 
expressed  that  they  come  provided  to  make  defence  and 
answer  to  three  points  :  that  is,  the  King's  title  now  in 
the  patentee  ;  the  order  and  agreement  in  the  Exche- 
quer, why  it  was  not  performed ;  and  the  estate  of  the 


ms  LETTERS.  409 

hospital,  whether  it  be  decayed  and  misemployed  ?     And     APP. 
so  I  leave  to  trouble  your  Honor  from  Gray's  Inn,  23d  Iv- ia 
August,  1610. 

Your  Honor's,  to  do  you  service, 

FR.  BACON. 


FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OF  SALISBURY.  iv.  19. 

(Orig.  in  the  State  Paper  Office.) 

London,  the  7th  of  May,  1611. 
IT  MAY  PLEASE  YOUR  GOOD   LORDSHIP, — 

Understanding  that  his  Majesty  will  be  pleased  to  sell 
some  good  portion  of  wood  in  the  forest  of  Dene,  which 
lies  very  convenient  to  the  company's  wireworks  at  Tyn- 
terne  and  Whitbrooke,  we  are  enforced  to  have  recourse 
to  your  Lordship  as  to  our  governor  of  the  said  company, 
humbly  praying  your  Lordship  to  afford  us  some  reason- 
able quantity  thereof,  the  better  to  uphold  the  said  works, 
whereof  by  information  from  our  farmers  there  we  stand 
in  such  need  as  without  your  Lordship's  favor  we  shall 
hardly  be  able  to  subsist  any  long  time.  We  do  not 
entreat  your  Lordship  for  any  other  or  more  easy  price 
than  that  your  Lordship  directs  the  sale  of  it  to  other, 
only  we  humbly  pray  for  some  preferment  in  the  oppor- 
tunity of  the  place  where  the  woods  lie  and  in  the  quan- 
tity, as  it  may  answer  in  some  proportion  to  our  wants. 
Herein,  if  your  Lordship  will  be  pleased  to  favor  us, 
then  we  humbly  pray  your  Lordship  to  direct  us  to  some 
such  persons  as  your  Lordship  resolves  to  employ  in  the 
18 


410  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.     business.      And  so  we  humbly  take  our  leaves  of  your 

IV-  19'  Lordship. 

Your  Lordship's  humbly  at  command, 

FR.  BACON. 
IV.  20.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  EARL  OF  SALISBURY. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

October,  1611. 
IT  MAY   PLEASE   YOUR  LORD&HIP,  — 

I  return  your  good  Lord's  minute,  excellently,  in 
my  opinion,  reformed  from  the  first  draught  in  some 
points  of  substance.  I  send  likewise  a  clause  warranting 
the  subject  to  refuse  gold  lighter  than  the  remedies  ex- 
pressed, which  is  no  new  device,  but  the  same  with  29th 
Eliz.  I  find  also  Mr.  Dubbleday  to  make  it  a  thing  dif- 
ficult to  name  the  pieces  of  more  ancient  coin  than  his 
Majesty's,  for  which  I  have  likewise  sent  a  clause.  This 
last  clause  is  immediately  to  follow  the  table  of  the  coins 
expressed.  The  clause  of  the  weight  is  to  come  last  of 
all.  So,  with  my  prayers,  I  rest 

Your  Lordship's  most  humble  and  bounden, 

FR.  BACON. 
• 

IV- 21-  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  KING  JAMES. 

(Orig.  in  the  State  Paper  Office.) 

January  31st,  1615. 

Though  I  placed  Peacham's  treason  within  the  last 
division,  agreeable  to  divers  predecessors,  whereof  I 
had  the  records  read,  and  concluded  that  your  Majes- 


HIS  LETTERS.  411 

ty's  safety,  and  life,  and  authority  was  thus  by  law  APP. 
instanced  and  quartered,  and  that  it  was  in  vain  to  IV- 21- 
fortify  on  three  of  the  heads  and  leave  you  open  on 
the  fourth,  it  is  true  he  heard  me  in  a  grave  fashion 
more  than  accustomed,  and  took  a  pen  and  took  notes 
of  my  divisions;  and  when  he  read  the  precedent  and 
records  would  say,  That  you  mean  falleth  within  your, 
first  or  your  second  division.  In  the  end  I  expressly  de- 
manded his  opinion  as  that  whereto  both  he  and  I  was 
enjoined.  But  he  desired  me  to  leave  the  precedents  with 
him  that  he  might  advise  upon  them.  I  told  him  the 
rest  of  my  fellows  would  despatch  their  part,  and  I 
should  be  behind  with  mine,  which  I  persuaded  my- 
self your  Majesty  would  impute  rather  to  his  back- 
wardness than  my  negligence.  He  said  as  soon  as  I 
should  imderstand  that  the  rest  were  ready  he  would 
not  be  long  after  with  his  opinion  or  answer.  For  St. 
John's  your  Majesty  knoweth  the  day  draws  on,  and 
my  Lord  Chancellor's  recovery  the  season  and  his  age 
promiseth  not  to  be  hasty.  I  spoke  with  him  on  Sun- 
day, at  what  time  I  found  him  in  bed,  but  his  spirits 
strong  and  not  spent  or  wearied,  and  spake  wholly  of 
your  business,  leading  me  from  one  matter  to  another, 
and  wished  and  seemed  to  hope  that  he  might  attend 
the  day  for  St.  John's,  as  it  were  (as  he  said)  to  be 
his  last  work,  to  commend  his  service  and  express  his 
affection  towards  your  Majesty.  I  presumed  to  say  to 
him  that  I  knew  your  Majesty  would  be  exceeding  de- 
sirous of  his  being  present  that  day,  so  as  it  might  be 


412  FRANCIS  BACON. 

AFP.  without  prejudice  to  his  continuance ;  but  that  other- 
IV.  21.  wise  your  Majesty  esteemed  a  servant  more  than  a  ser- 
vice, specially  such  a  servant.  Surely,  in  my  opinion, 
your  Majesty  had  better  put  off  the  day  than'  want 
his  presence,  considering  the  cause  of  the  putting  off 
is  so  notorious,  and  then  the  capital  and  the  criminal 
may  come  together  the  next  term.  I  have  not  been 
unprofitable  in  helping  to  discover  and  examine  within 
these  few  days  a  late  patent  by  surreption  obtained  from 
your  Majesty  of  the  greatest  forest  in  England,  worth 
30,000/.,  under  color  of  a  defective  title,  for  a  matter  of 
400/.  The  person  must  be  named,  because  the  patent 
must  be  questioned.  It  is  a  great  person,  my  Lord  of 
Shrewsbury,  or  rather,  as  I  think,  a  greater  than  he, 
which  is  my  Lady  of  Shrewsbury.  But  I  humbly  beg 
your  Majesty  to  know  this  first  from  my  Lord  Treas- 
urer; who  me  thinketh  groweth  ever  studious  in  your 
business.  God  preserve  your  Majesty. 

Your  Majesty's  most  humble  and  devoted 
subject  and  servant, 

FR.  BACON. 

The  rather  in  regard  of  Mr.  Murray's  absence,  I 
humbly  pray  your  Majesty  to  have  a  little  regard  to 
this  letter. 


HIS  LETTERS.  413 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  THE  COUNCIL.  APP. 

IV.  22. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

January  27,  1616  [1617]. 
IT   MAY   PLEASE   YOUR   LORDSHIPS, — 

According  to  your  Lordships'  preference  of  the  12th 
of  June  last,  I  have  considered  of  the  patent  of  Clement 
Dawbeny,  gent.,  for  the  slitting  of  iron  bars  into  rods. 
And  I  have  had  before  me  the  patentee  that  now  is,  and 
some  of  the  nailers  and  blacksmiths  that  complained 
against  the  same.  Whereupon  it  pleased  your  Lord- 
ships to  call  in  the  said  patent.  But  upon  examination 
of  the  business  I  find  the  complaint  to  be  utterly  un- 
just, and  was  first  stirred  up  by  one  Burrell,  master 
carpenter  to  the  East  India  Company,  who  hath  already 
of  himself  begone  to  set  up  the  like  engine  in  Ireland, 
and  therefore  endeavored  to  overthrow  the  said  patent, 
the  better  to  vent  his  own  iron  to  his  further  benefit  and 
advantage,  whereas  the  nailers  and  blacksmiths  them- 
selves do  all  affirm  that  they  are  now  supplied  by  the  pa- 
tentee with  as  much  good  and  serviceable  iron,  or  rather 
better,  than  heretofore  they  have  been,  and  that  the  said 
patent  hath  been  of  much  use  to  the  kingdom  in  gen- 
eral, and  likewise  very  beneficial  to  themselves  in  their 
trades.  And,  therefore,  your  Lordships  may  be  pleased 
to  suffer  him  quietly  to  enjoy  it  without  any  further 
interruption,  and  to  this  did  Burrell  himself  and  the 
opposers  willingly  condescend,  which  nevertheless  I  sub- 
mit to  the  wisdom  of  this  most  honorable  Board. 

FR.  BACON. 


414  FRANCIS   BACON. 

App-  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  KING  JAMES. 

IV.  23. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

March,  1617. 

The  gracing  of  the  Justices  of  Peace.  That  your 
Majesty  doth  hold  the  institution  of  Conservators  and 
Commissioners  or  Justices  of  the  Peace  to  be  one  of 
the  most  laudable  and  politic  ordinances  of  this  realm  or 
any  other  realm.  That  it  is  not  your  own  goodness  or 
virtues,  nor  the  labors  of  your  counsel  or  Judges,  that 
can  make  your  people  happy,  without  things  go  well 
amongst  the  Justices,  who  are  the  conduits  to  convey 
the  happy  streams  of  your  government  to  your  people. 
That  your  Majesty  would  as  soon  advance  and  call  a 
knight  or  gentleman  that  liveth  in  an  honorable  and 
worthy  fashion  in  his  country  ;  and  it  were  to  be  of 
your  counsel  or  to  office  about  yourself,  your  Queen,  or 
son,  or  an  Ambassador  employed  in  foreign  parts,  or  a 
courtier  bred  an  attendant  about  your  person.  That 
your  Majesty  is  and  will  be  careful  to  understand  the 
country  as  well  as  your  court  for  persons,  and  that  those 
that  are  worthy  servants  in  the  country  shall  not  need  to 
have  their  dependence  upon  any  the  greatest  subject  ^n 
your  kingdom,  but  immediately  upon  yourself. 

IV.  24.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  LORD  ZOUCH. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 
,  Gorhambury,  3d  August,  1619. 

Whereas  there  are  processes  gone  out,  at  Mr.  Attor- 
ney-General's prayer,  against  Hugh  Hugginson  and  Josias 


HIS  LETTERS.  415 

Ente,  concerning-  the  business  against  the  Dutchmen  in     AFP. 
Star  Cliamber ;   out  of  a  desire  to  preserve  the  ancient  Iv-  24- 
privileges  and  customs  due  to  your  place,  not  to  serve 
such  process  within  your  jurisdiction  without  your  leave 
and  consent,  I  thought  good  hereby  to  desire  your  Lord- 
ship  for  his   Majesty's   service,   that  you   would    cause 
them  forthwith  to  be  sent  up  to  answer  Mr.  Attorney's 
bill,  and   abide   such   further  proceedings  as  their  case 
shall  require. 

FEANCIS  BACON  TO  KING  JAMES.  IV.  25. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

Oct.  1626  [?1620]. 
MAY   IT   PLEASE    YOUR   MAJESTY, — 

According  to  your  commandment  I  have  considered 
of  your  patent  granted  about  the  time  of  your  going 
into  Scotland  unto  Mr.  Murray  and  Sir  Rob*  Lloyd,  of  a 
custom  or  duty  detained  from  your  Majesty  of  one  shil- 
ling four  pence  upon  the  cloth  and  25.  in  the  pound  upon 
certain  Northern  cloth,  by  color  of  a  Privy  Seal  [of] 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  of  a  former  Seal  certificate  made  by 
the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  then  Lord  Treasurer,  Mr.  Chancellor 
that  now  is,  and  myself,  then  your  Attorney-General, 
upon  which  certificate  the  patent  did  pass.  And  do  find 
that  the  said  certificate  is  very  true  and  well  grounded, 
wherein  I  have  strengthened  myself  with  the  opinion  of 
your  new  Solicitor,  so  that  there  is  no  doubt  but  the  right 
was  and  is  in  your  Majesty,  and  the  third  part  thereof 
was  sufficiently  granted  unto  them,  who  nevertheless  sub- 


418  FRANCIS   BACON. 

AFP.  mit  their  interest  (being  for  one-and-twenty  years)  unto 
IV.  25.  y0ur  Majesty.  But  to  suffer  the  patent  to  go  on' to  oper- 
ation, either  for  your  Majesty's  two  parts  or  their  third 
part,  considering  that  the  merchants  have  been  in  long 
past  of  that  ease,  and  that  cloth  is  now  loaclen  with  the 
preterinitted  duty  which  was  not  before  (and  of  which 
this  is  no  part),  and  [damaged]  the  state  of  the  trade  of 
cloth  hath  been  weakened  [damaged]  for  that  is  con 

cerned  the  cost  of  some  of  the  out  ports not  in 

any  sort  advise  it,  but  humbly  leave  it  to  your  Majesty's 
.  .  .  r  judgment. 

IV.  26.  FRANCIS  BACON  TO  SECRETARY  CONWAY. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

January  21,  1623. 

GOOD  MR.  SECRETARY, — 

When  you  visited  me  you  expressed  in  so  noble  a 
fashion  a  vif  sense  of  my  misfortunes,  as  I  cannot  but 
express  myself  no  less  sensible  of  your  good  fortune,  and 
therefore  do  congratulate  with  you  for  your  new  honor 
now  settled.  The  excellent  Marquis  brought  me  yester- 
day to  kiss  the  King's  hands,  so  as  now  methinks  I  am 
in  the  state  of  grace.  Think  of  me  and  speak  of  me 
as  occasion  serveth.  I  shall  want  no  will  to  deserve  it. 
At  best,  nobleness  is  never  lost.  I  rest  your  affectionate 
friend,  to  do  you  service, 

FRANCIS  ST.  ALBANS. 


HIS  LETTERS.  417 

APP. 

FRANCIS  BACON  TO  SECRETARY  CONWAY.  jy.  yj 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 

Gray's  Inn,  3d  of  Jnne,  1624. 

GOOD  MR.  SECRETARY,  — 

This  gentleman,  Mr.  Richard  Oilman,  who  hath 
been  (?)  towards  me,  hath  served  formerly  in  Scinde 
and  Russia  and  the  Low  Countries,  and  is  suitor  now 
for  a  lieutenant's  place  in  these  succors  which  are  now 
to  be  sent.  I  recommend  his  suit  unto  you,  and  shall 
give  you  very  hearty  thanks  if,  for  my  sake,  you  will 
pleasure  him. 

I  rest  your  very  affectionate  friend, 

Ps.  ST.  ALBANS. 


No.  V. 
ANTHONY  BACON  TO  FRANCIS  BACON. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  660,  fol.  221.) 

BROTHER,  — 

I  thought  it  meet  to  advertise  you  that  my  Lord  of 
Essex,  being  come  expressly  yesterday,  after  dinner, 
to  speak  with  the  French  ambassador  and  Sir  Anthony 
Perez,  not  finding  Sir  Anthony  Perez  at  his  house,  but 
word  that  he  should  repair  to  Walsingham  House  with 
all  speed;  where  he  had  two  hours'  conference  with 
him,  and,  and  amongst  other  things,  urged  the  matter 
you  wot  of  at  large,  with  no  less  judgment  than  devo- 
18*  AA 


418  FRANCIS   BACON. 

APP.  tion  to  my  Lord's  honor  and  profit,  and  good  affection 
v-  to  us.  His  argument  my  Lord  heard  most  attentively, 
and  accepted  most  kindly  of  many  right  hearty  thanks, 
assuring  him  that,  at  his  return  —  which  should  be 
within  two  days  —  from  the  Court,  he  would  resolve. 
The  occasion  was  very  fitly  ministered  by  my  Lord  him- 
self, by  advertising  Spencer  that  the  Queen  had  signed 
at  two  of  the  clock,  and  had  given  him  a  hundred 
pounds  in  lands,  simple  fee,  and  30Z.  in  parks,  which, 
for  her  quietness'  sake,  and  in  respect  of  his  friend,  he 
was  content  to  accept  without  any  further  contention. 
And  so  I  wish  you  as  myself, 

Your  entire  loving  brother, 

ANTHONY  BACON. 


vi.  i.  No.  VI. 

ESSEX  TO  *  *  *. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  657,  90.) 

MY  LORD, — 

By  the  advancement  of  Sir  Thomas  Egerton  to  the 
place  of  Lord-Keeper  (in  which  choice  I  think  my  coun- 
try very  happy),  there  is  void  the  office  of  Master  of  the 
Rolls.  I  do,  both  for  private  and  public  respects,  wish 
Mr.  F.  B.  to  it  before  all  men,  and  should  think  much 
done  for  her  Majesty's  service  if  he  were  so  placed  as  his 
virtues  might  be  active,  which  now  lie  as  it  were  buried. 
What  success  I  have  had  in  commending  him  to  her 


LETTERS   OF   THE  EABL   OF  ESSEX.  419 

Majesty  your  Lordship  knows.     I  would  not  the  second     APP. 
time  hurt  him  with  my  care  and  kindness.     But  I  will    ^  l- 
commend  unto  your  Lordship  his  cause;  not  as  his  alone, 
or  as  mine  — his  friend,  but  as  a  public  cause,  wherein 
your  Lordship  shall  have  honor  to  the  world,  satisfaction 
to  see  worthy  fruit  of  your  own  work,  and  exceeding 
thankfulness  from  us  both.     And  so  I  rest, 

Your  Lordship's  cousin  and  friend, 

E. 

ESSEX  TO  SIR  JOHN  PORTESCUE.  VI. -2. 

(Orig.  at  Lambeth  Palace,  657,  90.) 
COUSIN,  — 

I  do  commend  unto  you  both  present  actions  and  ab- 
sent friends,  —  I  mean  those  that  are  absent  from  me,  so 
as  I  can  neither  defend  them  from  wrong  nor  help  to 
that  right  their  virtue  deserves.  And,  because  an  occa- 
sion offers  itself  before  the  rest,  I  will  commend  unto  you 
one  above  the  rest.  The  place  is  the  Mastership  of  the 
Rolls ;  the  man,  Mr.  Francis  Bacon,  a  kind  and  worthy 
friend  to  us  both.  If  your  labors  in  it  prevail,  I  will  owe 
it  you  as  a  particular  debt,  though  you  may  challenge  it 
as  a  debt  of  the  state. 

And  so,  wishing  you  all  happiness,  I  rest, 

Your  cousin  and  friend, 
E. 

Cousin,  —  I  pray  you  remember  my  good  Dr.  Browne. 
I  shall  challenge  you  for  a  great  unkind  ness  if  his  suit 
succeed  ill. 


420  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  No.  VII. 

vn.  i. 

EXTRACTS  PROM  THE  COUNCIL  REGISTER,  APRIL  25, 1614. 

(Orig.  in  Privy  Council  Office.) 

Present :  — 
Lord  Chancellor. 
Earl  of  Pembroke. 
Lord  Wotton. 
Mr.  Secretary  Winwood. 
Sir  Julius  Cassar. 
Sir  Thomas  Lake. 

A  LETTER  TO  SIR  FRANCIS  BACON,  KNIGHT,  His  MAJES- 
TY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 

We  send  you  here  enclosed  the  Petition  of  one  Richard 
Arrowsmith,  his  Majesty's  servant,  wherein  he  complain- 
eth  unto  us,  that  in  February  last  a  number  of  people 
gathered  together  in  the  night  and,  in  disguised  apparel, 
did  riotously  pull  up  and  overthrow  a  hedge  and  ditch 
which  he  had  caused  to  be  made  about  a  copse  called 
Newland,  for  preservation  of  his  Majesty's  game  in  that 
part  of  the  forest  of  Windsor ;  and  do  pray  and  require 
you  (if  upon  further  information  you  shall  find  the 
offence  to  deserve  it)  to  send  for  such  and  so  many  of 
the  offenders  as  you  shall  think  fit,  and  to  proceed 
against  them  in  the  Star  Chamber,  the  next  term,  in 
the  behalf  of  his  Majesty,  according  as  is  accustomed  in 
cases  of  like  nature.  And  so,  &c. 


EXTRACTS  FROM   PRIVY   COUNCIL   REGISTERS.  421 

COUNCIL  REGISTER,  OCT.  19,  1614.  APP. 

VII.  2. 

(Orig.  in  Privy  Council  Office.) 

Ut  supra  with  the  Lord  Archbishop. 

A  LETTER  TO  SIR  FRANCIS  BACON,  KNIGHT,  His  MAJES- 
TY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 

Whereas  his  Majesty  hath  taken  notice  of  a  great  re- 
sort of  gentlemen  of  quality  and  livelihood,  together  with 
their  wives  and  families,  unto  the  city  of  London,  and 
other  principal  cities  and  towns  of  this  realm,  with  a 
purpose  (as  it  appeareth)  to  settle  their  habitation  there, 
for  saving  of  charges  and  other  private  respects.  His 
Majesty,  considering  of  his  great  wisdom  how  prejudicial 
these  courses  may  prove  to  the  general  government  of 
the  kingdom,  when  the  country  shall  be  deprived  of  the 
assistance  and  presence  of  so  many  gentlemen,  who  for 
the  most  part  bear  office  or  authority  in  the  counties 
where  they  dwell,  besides  the  great  decay  of  hospitality 
and  other  inconveniences  that  will  ensue  thereupon,  is 
therefore  pleased  that  a  Proclamation  shall  be  published, 
enjoining  and  commanding  all  such  persons  aforemen- 
tioned to  repair  unto  their  several  dwellings  in  the  coun- 
try, before  the  last  of  November  next,  there  to  abide  and 
continue  as  heretofore  they  have  usually  done,  which  we 
require  you  to  draw  accordingly  and  to  make  ready  for 
his  Majesty's  signature  with  as  much  convenient-  expe- 
dition as  you  may.  And  so,  &c. 


422  FRANCIS  BACON. 

APP.  (Orig.  iQ  Privy  Council  Office.) 

VII.  3. 

At  Whitehall,  on  Tuesday  the  20th  of  February,  1615. 

Present :  — 

The  Lord  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Lord  Treasurer.  Lord  Bishop  of  Winchester. 

Lord  Privy  Seal.  Lord  Knollis. 

Duke  of  Lennox.  Mr.  Secretary  Winwood. 

Lord  Chamberlain.  Mr.  Secretary  Lake. 

Earl  of  Mar.  Mr.   Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 

Earl  of  Dunfermline.  chequer. 

Master  of  the  Rolls. 

Upon  a  difference  depending  at  the  Board  between  the 
Dutch  Congregation  of  the  town  of  Colchester  and  one 
William  Goodwin  and  others  of  that  town,  as  will  appear 
by  petitions  offered  to  the  Board  by  both  parties.  For- 
asmuch as  the  matter  consisting  of  many  parties  will 
require  a  full  and  deliberate  hearing  for  the  better  set- 
tling of  the  trade  of  Bay  and  Say  making,  in  that  place. 
Their  Lordships  have  this  day  ordered  that  his  Majesty's 
Attorney-General,  calling  all  parties  before  him,  do  hear 
and  examine  the  differences  and  allegations  on  both  sides, 
and  thereupon  to  make  report  of  his  opinion  thereof,  and 
what  course  he  thinketh  fit  to  be  observed  therein,  in 
writing,  by  Thursday  next  in  the  afternoon,  that  such 
further  order  may  thereupon  be  taken  as  shall  be  ex- 
pedient. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  PRIVY  COUNCIL  REGISTERS.          423 

(Orig.  in  Privy  Council  Office.)  ^    , 

At  the  Court  at  Whitehall,  on  Wednesday  in  the  after-  yn.  4. 
noon,  the  5th  of  April,  1615  :  — 

Present :  — 

Lord  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 
Lord  Chancellor.  Mr.  Secretary  Winwood. 

Lord  Treasurer.  Mr.  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 

Duke  of  Lennox.  .  chequer. 

Lord  Chamberlain.  Lord  Chief  Justice. 

Lord  Fenton.  Mr.  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy. 

Lord  Knollis.  Sir  Thomas  Lake. 

William  Martin,  Recorder  of  the  city  of  Exeter,  being 
heretofore  sent  for  by  order  from  their  Lordships,  and  this 
day  called  unto  the  Board,  and  charged  by  his  Majesty's 
Attorney-General  to  have  lately  written  a  History  of  Eng- 
land, wherein  were  many  passages  so  unaptly  inserted  as 
might  justly  have  drawn  some  heavy  and  severe  censure 
upon  him  for  the  same.     On  his  humble  submission  and 
hearty  repentance  and  acknowledgment  of  his  fault,  their 
Lordships  were   pleased  to  become  mediators  unto  his 
Majesty  for  his  grace  and  favor  to  be  extended  towards 
him,  which  being  happily  obtained,  he  is  freely  dismissed 
from  all  further  attendance  ;  being  first  enjoined  by  their 
Lordships  to  manifest  hereafter  in  some  short  declaration 
in  writing  (as  he  hath  already  done  by  words)  the  true 
sense  and  understanding  he  hath  of  his  oflence,  together 
with  his  repentance  for  the  same.     And  it  is  further  or- 
dered by  their  Lordships  that  the  bond  which  he  sealed  to 
his  Majesty's  use  for  his  appearance  at  the  Board  should 
be  cancelled  and  delivered  unto  him. 


424  FRANCIS   BACON. 

No.  VIII. 

REPORT  BY  THE  BARONS  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER,  THE  SOLICITOR 
GENERAL  (SiR  FRANCIS  BACON),  AND  THE  RECORDER 
OF  LONDON,  TO  THE  PRIVY  COUNCIL. 

(Orig.  in  State  Paper  Office.) 
MAY  IT  PLEASE   YOUR  LORDSHIPS, — 

We  have  received  your  honorable  letters  bearing  date 
the  25th  day  of  this  instant  month  of  June,  and  enclosed 
in  the  same  a  note  of  a  suit  which  has  been  of  late  pre- 
sented to  his  Majesty  and  by  him  referred  to  your  Lord- 
ships' consideration :  the  substance  of  which  suit  is  to 
have  a  warrant  directed  to  some  officer  to  demand  and 
collect  fines  upon  actions  of  debt  and  other  finable  actions 
to  be  sued  in  all  other  Courts  of  England  (other  than 
the  Courts  held  at  Westminster),  concerning  which  your 
Lordships  require  us  to  certify  you  our  opinions  in  all 
points  at  our  speediest  opportunity.  We  have  therefore, 
according  to  your  honorable  directions,  considered  of  the 
suit.  And  do  find  it  a  matter  of  so  great  importance  as 
we  must  humbly  pray  leave  to  have  time  to  confer  with 
the  rest  of  the  Judges,  that  upon  our  joint  conference 
your  Lordships  may  have  the  more  full  satisfaction  both 
for  law  and  conveniency.  Humbly  taking  our  leaves, 
this  28th  of  June,  1608. 

Your  Lordships'  to  command. 


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